Father's Gun
by Diana Lucifera
Summary: After the events of "Brother's Blood," Sam and Dean are faced with teaming up with John to hunt the Yellow-Eyed Demon, all while keeping Sam's powers a secret and dodging their dad's questions about just why things between them are so... different. (Brother's Blood 'verse)
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Father's Gun  
><strong>Authors: <strong>diana_lucifera & Thaelia15  
><strong>Pairing: <strong>Dean/Sam  
><strong>Rating: <strong>Mature  
><strong>Warnings:<strong> minor character death, mentions of torture, the slowest of burns, and excessive bed-sharing  
><strong>Summary: <strong>After the events of "Brother's Blood," Sam and Dean are faced with teaming up with John to hunt the Yellow-Eyed Demon, all while keeping Sam's powers a secret and dodging their dad's questions about just why things between them are so... different.

* * *

><p>John's first thought when he hears the all too familiar tone telling him he's got a new voicemail is, "Goddammit, it's Sam again."<p>

It's just a guess, but that's the kind of day John's been having.

He's been in Chicago for a while now, playing cat and mouse with one of Yellow Eyes' lackies – its second in command, if the bitch he exorcised in Topeka can be believed. The thing's already dropped two bodies trying to set a trap for John, a pair of locked-door murders of former Lawrence residents that John, in spite of himself, has refused to get involved in.

They're at a stalemate, John moving on to his fourth motel after yet another failed attempt to draw the demon into his own trap went belly-up this morning, and he's starting to question if he's wasted all this time he could have spent looking for the Colt on a demon who might not even be worth it, might not even know the secret he's trying desperately to unravel. The answer to the question that's been haunting John for months, that keeps him up at night, makes him swear he can still hear that demon's voice from all those months ago whispering in the dark: _"It's all about the blood."_

The voicemail notification sounds again. John almost, _almost_ doesn't listen to it.

He always checks them eventually, even though only about 1 in 10 is actually worth his time. He's got to put up with the rest – Sam swearing at him, Bobby telling him off, Ellen's nagging – because occasionally there's one from Caleb or Jim with information about demon sightings and because Dean's semi-frequent status reports are important and sometimes even useful.

Even as he reaches over to click off "Airplane Blues" and dig the cell out of his truck's center console, he's already regretting it. Knows there's just going to be another one of Sam's angry rants waiting for him, calls growing more frequent and somehow even more venomous ever since Dean's close call with that taser and then again after John sent them off after a pagan god playing at being a scarecrow to shake them off his trail.

But it isn't Sam's voice he hears when he holds the phone up to his ear.

It's Dean's.

It's Dean, telling John that he and Sam are in Chicago, too, that they think they've got a lead on the thing that killed their mom, that they're going after it _tonight_.

It feels like John's heart stops.

All of this running, sending them off in the opposite direction, refusing to answer their calls, and here they are anyway, walking right into a trap set for John. Or Hell, he thinks as he makes a U-turn so tight it has the tires squealing, maybe they _are _the trap.

It wouldn't be the first time this bastard and his cronies have tried to use John's boys against him.

He's still trying to come up with the best plan of action when he pulls up outside the warehouse at 1435 West Erie. He hasn't been seeing the right signs, knows it can't be the yellow-eyed bastard himself, but even if it's the one he's been hunting, the Demon's lieutenant, it's still plenty dangerous. John never taught Sam and Dean to fight demons, not really – didn't really think there'd be much use in it, seeing as how up 'til now they've been so rare.

If that gap in their training has gotten his boys killed—

John doesn't have time to finish that thought, because one of the warehouse windows is exploding and there's a small, blonde figure plummeting through the air, landing on the cement with a thud. Sam and Dean appear at the window after a moment, a bit banged up but alive and apparently no longer in danger. They stare down at the still, mangled body spread out on the tarmac for a few moments before disappearing back inside.

John slips back into the alley as his boys stumble out of the warehouse as quickly as they can, bickering in hushed voices over who's more hurt and who should drive, tossing overloaded duffle bags into the backseat of the Impala.

They're fine. Whatever it was they went up against tonight, it was something they could handle. Maybe it had nothing to do with Yellow Eyes at all. John's never been happier to get a false lead.

He could leave without them even noticing, go back to tracking down the big fish in town, let Sam and Dean move on while he hides in the shadows just like he did in Lawrence. But it had been hard enough to do it then, and John can't shake that heart-sinking feeling that had rocketed through him after listening to Dean's message. It's been eight months since he's seen Sam, even longer since he's seen Dean, and for all he knows, this may be the last chance he has.

It's stupid and almost certainly dangerous for him to be around them – around _Sam_ – right now, but God, does he _want_ to.

He can break his own rule once, he tells himself. Just once, and just for half an hour. Then he and his boys will go their separate ways again. John won't let them get involved in his war. Not yet. Not until the time is right.

Not until he knows the truth.

* * *

><p>The first thing Sam does when he and Dean walk in and find John in their hotel room is start throwing punches. John's really not sure why he expected this to go any different.<p>

"Sam," he tries, blocking a particularly well-executed right hook. "Calm down, son."

Sam snarls, _actually snarls_, in response and cracks a fist into John's jaw so hard that it makes his vision spin.

It's a good hit. Sam's gotten stronger since John fought him at that gas station on the way to Louisiana. Hunting's doing him some good after all, John thinks. He's gotten faster, too, so fast that John almost takes another blow before he manages to deflect it. John's not surprised by Sam's skill or his fury, but he is surprised that he has to doge three more hits before Dean finally shoulders his way between them.

"All right, that's _enough_," he says, putting a hand on each of Sam's shoulders and gently – so much more gently than John remembers – pushing Sam backwards and away from John. "Cut it out, Holyfield."

Sam's letting out heavy breaths, face still pinched into an angry sneer.

"Dean," he grits out. "After what he—"

"We talked about this," Dean says in a lower, softer voice. "You're the one who's been pushing so hard for us to find him. I've been assumin' that wasn't just to punch his face in."

"Well, not _just_ for that," Sam grumbles after a moment, flicking his eyes up to the ceiling.

"Then take a breather," Dean tells him. "Lemme talk to him."

Sam opens his mouth to protest as Dean turns, reaches out and grasps the elbow of Dean's jacket between his thumb and forefinger, gives a little insistent tug like he's trying to get big brother to play army men, but Dean shakes it off easily, tossing a look back at his brother that John can't define. Sam's frown deepens, but he shoulders one of the duffle bags and tosses it onto one of the beds, digging through it to sort out the weapons he has stashed there.

Dean shoves his hands deep into his pockets and gives John a nod in greeting. He can't quite seem to look John in the eye.

"Hey, Dad," he says. "S'been a long time."

"Hello, son," John says, smiling softly.

It's damn good to see him, no matter what the circumstances. John hasn't forgotten those long weeks of worry from last year and how relieved he'd been to hear those words from his boy: _'I'm alive.'_

"Dad, it was a trap," Dean says, looking down at his shoes. "I didn't know. I'm sorry."

On the other side of the room, Sam snaps his shotgun closed like a threat, glowering at John from underneath his fringe.

"Yeah," John tells Dean, smile feeling more pasted on by the second, "I figured it might be. This isn't the first time it's tried something like this."

"Would've been nice to have a heads up, then," Sam interjects.

"Sammy," Dean says warningly, and Sam sets his jaw and starts unwinding the holster on one of his wrists.

John looks between the two of them, furrowing his brow.

"Listen, boys—" he starts.

But he never gets a chance to finish, because suddenly there's an unseen hand throwing him backwards with enough force that his feet leave the ground.

Crashing into the kitchenette forces the air out of his lungs, and John gasps open-mouthed as he struggles to escape the invisible hands pinning him to the counter. Dean yells out in shock and is sent flying in the opposite direction, while Sam lunges for the weapons bag and get slashed across the torso for his trouble.

The same claws that send Sam's blood splattering against the wallpaper are working on John, too. He screams as they rip furrows in his flesh, quick and shallow, taking him apart slow and painful. They're still working on Dean, throwing him back down every time he tries to stand, and John loses track of Sam completely until he hears a yell over the chaos and realizes that Sam has managed to crawl his way back to his duffle.

"Shut your eyes!" Sam yells, brandishing a flare. "These things are shadow demons! So let's turn on the light!"

The second Sam lights the flare, the creatures let go of John. He keeps his eyes pinched shut, letting Dean manhandle him out of the building. As soon as they spill out into the darkness, Sam drops the bag of weapons and is at Dean's side, hands nervously skittering across his brother's chest.

"Are you okay?" he pants out, eyes wild. "Did they—"

"I'm _fine_," Dean grumbles, pulling Sam's hand away from where he's thumbing across one of the deep gashes in his forehead. "We need to go, Sammy."

"Yeah," Sam agrees after a moment. "They'll be back once the flare goes out again."

He throws open one of the back doors of the Impala, tosses his bag in, and motions impatiently for John to follow.

John hesitates. His hunter's instincts are yelling at him to get into his truck and put as much road between him and the boys as he can. But that same small, quiet part of John that had pushed him to come to the motel in the first place is telling him that he needs to stick with his sons. They're beat to hell, vulnerable. If they don't manage to shake off those shadow demons, John isn't sure Sam and Dean can survive a third assault.

He glances as Dean but can't catch his gaze.

"Let's go!" Sam presses, eyes darting anxiously between the motel room window and John.

It's just until he's sure they're all right, John thinks. It won't have to change anything.

He gets into the car.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks so much for the reviews, guys! We're so happy to hear that you're excited for the sequel! Here's the next chapter, as promised. If you enjoy it, please take a few seconds to leave us a note letting us know. Enjoy!

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><p>Dean's wanted to get the family back together for a long damn time now. He hates to admit it, but this isn't really going like he'd pictured.<p>

The second they get into the motel, Dad orders Dean to get the place protected and disappears into the bathroom with a handful of supplies from the med kit. Sam, who spent the entire drive here and the time he was helping Dean set up the salt lines in a tense, tight-lipped silence, submits to his own medical treatment with only a moderate amount of bitching.

"Hurry up!" he presses, squirming impatiently while Dean puts a stitch into the gash across his lower back.

"Shuddup," Dean grumbles, smacking him across the back of the head with the hand that's not still attached to Sam's skin with a needle and dental floss, "and stop moving around."

"Come on," Sam grumbles, craning his neck to look him in the eye. "That's just a scratch, and _you_ look like your face is about to _fall off_. You can't tell me that isn't hurting you."

Dean slides the needle in again and watches Sam's face crinkle.

"Matter of fact, it stings like a sumbitch," he tells Sam's shoulder blade, "and the sooner you quit whining and let me patch you up, the sooner I can get a bandage on it and take a mountain of pain killers."

Sure enough, that stops the wiggling. Nothing keeps the kid in line quite like good, old-fashioned emotional blackmail. Dean should probably feel guiltier about that thought than he does. He's put up with Sam's mother-henning for the last eight months, even the frankly embarrassing levels he'd hit during that case with the Reaper, but there's a pecking order, dammit. The day Dean just lies back and lets his baby brother fuss over him without giving just as good back is the day Hell freezes over.

He's finished mopping Sam up in another ten minutes, and Sam takes just a moment to pull his shirt and hoodie back on before trying to pounce.

"I got it," Dean waves him off, digging a couple of butterfly bandages out of the first aid kit. "Go check on Dad, would you?"

Sam scoffs.

"Dad can take care of himself."

"So can I," Dean counters.

"Can you stitch your own forehead shut?" Sam asks, glaring. "'Cause otherwise you're gonna look like that guy from _Monster_."

Dean regards himself in the mirror. Okay, Sam's probably right on that one, although it's completely against the big brother code to admit it.

"Fine," he says, tossing the hodgepodge of gauze and bandages at Sam. "I'll go check on Dad."

He gets about a half-dozen steps before Sam steps in front of him.

"Could you stow the stoic man-pain crap?" he says sharply. "What, Dad's here, so suddenly you've gotta be Wolverine?"

Dean rolls his eyes.

"Sam—"

"You know, he doesn't appreciate that crap any more than I do," Sam presses. "It endangers his _precious_ mission."

"God, can you lay off?" Dean snaps, sidestepping him. "We've been back together for, what, an hour? Could you at least _try_ not to start shit?"

Sam looks pained.

"Well, I didn't shoot at him, so believe it or not, this is me trying. Sorry, but I'm still a little upset about the fact that _he left my brother to die_."

Dean opens his mouth to protest… something about that. He still hasn't come up with a solid counterargument to that line of thinking, and anyway, every time he tries, Sam ends up with that look like Dean just punched him in the kidneys.

"And stop deflecting," Sam adds, grabbing a handful of Dean's jacket and trying to drag him over to the bed. "You're acting like a jerk."

"Well, you're being a little bitch," Dean returns, making another move towards the bathroom.

Sam sets his jaw.

"Dad!" he says loudly. "Dean won't let me patch him up!"

Dean blanches as John swings the bathroom door open, glaring at both of them.

"Dean, let your brother clean up those injuries _now_," he barks. "Sam, stop chasing him around the damn room; you're tracking blood. It looks like a goddamn murder scene in here."

"Yes, sir," Dean says.

John shuts the door with a click, and Dean turns to shoot Sam a dirty look.

"Did you just friggin' _tattle_ on me? What are you, nine?"

Sam tosses Dean a distinctly little brotherish smirk.

"You heard the man," he says, wiggling the needle at Dean.

Awesome.

Forty-five minutes later, Dean looks like Frankenstein's sexy cousin, Dad has finally emerged from the bathroom, and Sam's mood seems to have picked up enough that Dean feels comfortable offering him pain killers instead of Midol. Dean watches Sam swallow the pills before tossing his back along with the fifth of whiskey he's been nursing since Sam started stitching. He tugs his jacket and shirt off and tosses them across the room, regarding himself in the mirror as he gives Sam's impeccable line of sutures an experimental poke.

"Just so you know, if this shit scars, I'm telling people we fought off a mountain lion."

"That's a lot less impressive that what actually happened, isn't it?" John says, looking faintly amused over the notes he's scribbling on hotel stationary.

"You didn't let me finish," Dean tells him. "There was a school bus full of kids involved. And a chainsaw."

John looks up at him and smiles for a second before it dies. He gives Dean a once-over, eyebrows furrowing, and then turns to grab something from one of their suitcases. Dean raises an eyebrow, glances over to see what Sammy's making of that and catches him spitting the pills he'd _apparently_ tongued into the fake palm tree in the corner like a goddamn alpaca.

"What the hell?" Dean mouths at him, glancing nervously at their dad's back.

"He's going to try to leave," Sam says in a whisper. "I'm not going to be stoned into complacency _again_ when he does."

"Sam, he's not going to—"

The look that Sam's giving him is just too close to pitying for Dean to sit here and take it. He stomps briskly into the bathroom, kneels at the toilet, and sticks a couple of fingers down his throat.

It does approximately jack shit.

"Oh, come on!" Dean whines, trying again with absolutely no luck.

Sam shoulders his way into the bathroom, not looking particularly surprised to find Dean with his head shoved in the commode. Dean makes a third attempt and gets nothing but a sore throat and a mouth full of spit. He frowns down at his stupid, traitor fingers.

"That whole 'no gag reflex' thing not so cool now, is it?" Sam asks smugly, squeezing out a precise line of Crest on his toothbrush. "Don't worry. I'll keep an eye on dad. You get some rest."

Dean glares at him as Sam pops the toothbrush in his mouth and starts scrubbing it along his teeth, making even the hushed 'scritch-scritch' of the bristles sound smug and self-satisfied.

Itching to wipe the snotty grin off his little brother's face, Dean tries to think of another way to toss the pills and hits on the answer with a smirk right as Sammy's eyebrow quirks.

Salt.

Dean's eyes dart to the bags at the same time as Sam's, toothbrush drooping in his mouth.

"Don't even—" he starts, only to get cut off by Dean's hip check, which would have been as brilliant as it was graceful if Sam hadn't been endowed with freakish Yeti limbs. As it is, they end up tangled in a vicious, elbow-y wresting match in the doorway before John pounds on the wall.

"Boys! Knock it off," he barks as Sam sends Dean stumbling against the tub and elbows past him to the sink to spit.

That's just as well anyway, because the tiles in the bathroom are getting cool and way too blurry for Dean to try and half-nelson anyone.

"Finally," Sam sighs, seeing Dean leaning against the bathroom wall like it's the only solid thing in the room. "You know, just once, I wish you'd take it easy after a hunt WITHOUT being stoned off your ass."

"I'm not stoned, you're just blurry," Dean insists to the bending, wavy Sams in front of him.

"Sure, Cheech, whatever you say," Sam agrees from far away, towing Dean out of the bathroom and tipping him onto the bed, and Dean means to resist, really he does, but someone's swapped out their crappy motel beds with the softest and most awesome mountain of pillows on the planet, so really, he's not rolling over. He's prioritizing.

Besides, his face _really_ hurts.

* * *

><p>"Dean," Sam sighs, poking his brother in the side to no avail. "Move, Dean. You're taking up the whole bed… <em>Dean<em>!"

"Mmmyu're not the boss of me," Dean mumbles into his pillow, flinging and arm out and giving a lazy, insolent wiggle into the mess of hotel sheets.

"Dude, come on," Sam grumbles, mentally kicking himself for not at least getting Dean showered and out of his boots before drugging him to the gills on illicit pain meds. "You've still got your shoes on."

Dean's only response is to clumsily plant a boot in Sam's solar plexus and scrunch his face into the pillows at a more comfortable angle. Really, Sam probably deserves at least a little of this for doping his brother up to get his way, but in Sam's defense, Dean is prone to running himself ragged on the best days, and no matter how macho he played it tonight, he lost a lot of blood on top of scaling a fucking building and getting tossed across a warehouse into a fuck-ton of crates.

And then, on top of all that, their dad had to show up. Sam knows how much it had to take out of Dean to hang back like he did, to let Sam vent even a little bit of the John-centered rage he's pent up for these past eight months before stepping in and pulling them apart.

"You don't move, I'm just gonna have to sleep on top of you," Sam shrugs, unlacing the boot digging into the waistband of his jeans with a few, efficient jerks.

"Take the other bed," John orders absently, pile of hotel stationary notes in front of him rustling as he moves a seemingly arbitrary piece of paper form one stack to the next.

"Then where would you sleep, Dad?" Sam asks archly, snatching Dean's other foot from the tangle of grimy, grit-scattered sheets and making quick work of the laces. "Unless you're planning on taking off in the middle of the night. _Again_."

Sam drops Dean's boots to the floor as he turns to face his father.

"That's what you were planning to do, wasn't it?" he demands, striding to tower over John at the dinette. "Dump us here, take of as soon as we were out? Disappear for another eight months? Fuck off and screen our calls until—"

"Sammy."

Sam turns to see Dean propping himself up on the bed, bleary-eyed, but determined.

"That's enough," he enunciates, slow but steady.

"But Dean—" Sam protests, flailing an arm angrily at John, still stoic and unmoved at the table.

"He'll wait," Dean interrupts firmly, turning his hazy but focused glare at John. "Right?"

"We'll head back to the truck in the morning, plan from there," John rumbles, capping his pen in a swift, short motion and striding past Sam into the bathroom.

"Bastard," Sam mutters, shucking his hoodie and shoving at Dean's shoulder until he scoots over on the bed with a whine.

"Evil Dragon, be nice," his older brother moans into the pillow, aiming a clumsy kick at Sam's ankle.

"Faker," Sam mutters, flopping into the pillows. "I know what you sound like when you're stoned, Dean. Stop hamming it up and get some sleep."

"Don't tell me what to do, Ms. Frizzle," Dean slurs; Sam can see the corner of his mouth quirking up against the pillow. "I don't want to go on your magic school bus."

"Shut up, jackass," Sam says, trying not to grin. "And don't sleep on your stomach, you're gonna aggravate your stitches."

"Yessir," Dean replies sarcastically, trying to mock-salute and instead slapping himself lightly in the ear.

Sam is _so_ not finding this funny. At all.

To prove the point, he grabs onto Dean's shoulder and pulls, making his brother flop over onto his back with a beleaguered moan. Dean glares at him blearily before making a move to turn over again.

"Stop that," Sam grouses, grabbing at Dean again.

"Make me," Dean says with perfect clarity, because go figure, drugs or no drugs, Dean still has it in him to be a stubborn ass.

And Sam, who can never resist throwing around the fact that he outweighs his brother by a good fifteen pounds now, does just that and pins him down, careful not to put too much pressure on the massive pattern of bruises mottling Dean's torso.

"Oof," he brother exhales, warm puff of whiskey-soaked breath against Sam's chin. He blinks up at Sam, eyes crossing a little at the proximity of their faces. "Hey, get off me."

"Hey," Sam says, "don't sleep on your stitches."

"Wasn't gonna," Dean tells him, ignoring the fact that he clearly was.

Sam slides a little bit off of him, so he's half laying on the bed, right arm and leg thrown over Dean to keep him where he is. He lets his head droop onto his brother's shoulder.

It's been a long day for him, too. It's not just the fact that he's nearly as bad off as Dean, and with none of the happy-drugs to numb the pain. It's also the fact that he's been riding an intense emotional rollercoaster, running the gamut of hope, anticipation, fear and rage, and now he's left bone-tired and the only thing he feels about John's sure attempt to slip out of their grasp again is a dull, angry acceptance. They'll be having that fight when it happens, but Sam's not exactly looking forward to it. He'd rather drug himself up and collapse along with Dean, but of course, he can't. He's not going to let John Winchester abandon his brother again. This time, Sam's going to be ready for him.

He sighs, scrubbing his brow across Dean's shoulder blade.

"What'd you eat for dinner?" Dean asks after a moment, voice a deep rumble against Sam's ear.

He already knows the answer to that, Sam thinks grumpily. Of course, he's gonna ask anyway.

"Nothing."

Dean huffs disapprovingly.

"No lunch either."

"I had a salad," Sam defends.

"No," Dean slurs purposefully, eyes still closed. "I _paid_ for you to have a salad. You ate two bites before you found this case and stopped eating."

How does he remember this stuff when even Sam can't?

"Fine," Sam grumbles. "Then go to sleep, and tomorrow morning we'll go to whatever grease factory you want, and I'll let you feed me eggs and bacon until I explode. Happy?"

Dean snorts.

"Be happier if you'd just take care of yourself."

"Hypocrite," Sam accuses without any bite.

"Maybe," Dean allows.

He runs a hand over the arm Sam has splayed across his chest, which Sam realizes belatedly is the one still proudly bearing the scar from his emergency blood transfusion eight months ago. Dean gets his thumb up against it, tracing the raised skin from elbow to wrist. Sam tries to snatch his arm away, but Dean holds him tight by the wrist, opening one eye to fix Sam with a bleary look.

This is why Sam always wears long sleeves these days, throws hoodies on top of his tees even on the warmest days. It's not that he's ashamed of the scar. In fact, on the rare occasions that he actually remembers it's there, he's kind of perversely proud of it. But after he'd got the bandages off, he'd figured out pretty quick that letting Dean catch a glimpse of it leaves him maudlin and strange for hours – sometimes even days – afterwards. Sam guesses he can't blame Dean for that. It took months of watching Dean parade around in his boxers before Sam stopped getting hit with that sucker punch of paralyzing guilt every time he saw the scars from the vampire bites that still mar his brother's skin.

But whether Dean realizes it or not, he's pretty damn extreme around it, and Sam's learned to be careful. He doesn't like that Dean can't seem to see it like Sam does, as a symbol of how much Sam would do for him, and not as a reminder of some imaginary screw-up. But until Dean's guilt stops being so fresh (or maybe until he magically transforms into a different person, Sam thinks grimly), it's better to keep it covered up whenever possible.

The thing is, Sam forgets. He's got dozens of scars, and though most of them are admittedly less obvious, at the end of the day, a scar is a scar. He still pushes up his sleeves when Dean's not around, still leaves his hoodies in the car if it's too hot. He's gotten his share of stares, sure, a handful of comments; nothing bad. There was a diner parking lot in Fayetteville where a teenager had called it 'awesome' and asked him if it was from a skateboard accident ('No, biking,' Sam had told him). He'd had an old man stop him in the drug store to compare their artery removal scars and ask whether or not Sam found the local hospital to be as incompetent as he had. In a rusty, dust-encrusted gas station in rural Mississippi, he'd given the cashier a fifty and gotten a wide-eyed stare and a crumpled old pamphlet on suicide prevention along with his change.

It didn't bother him, just like it didn't bother him when, two or three months into his and Dean's little monster-killing road trip, he'd unthinkingly shoved his shirtsleeves up to his elbows in a bar and gotten a long, appraising look from the bottle-blonde Dean had been plying with booze for the last half hour.

"It must be so hard with your brother," he'd heard her simper once Sam excused himself to go to the restroom. "You know, my cousin tried to kill herself once. It can it be _such_ a burden."

And the next the Sam knew, he was frantically shoving his sleeves down while Dean stood up abruptly, gathered all of their stuff up under one arm and manhandled Sam right out of the bar with the other.

They'd driven back to the motel in uncomfortable silence, and once they'd gotten back, Dean had cracked open his own alcohol stash.

"Rather stay in tonight anyway," he'd said, pouring Sam a glass. "S'not really your scene in the first place, right?"

Sam had nursed his own drink, watching Dean put away three of his own, totally not understanding why Dean was as upset as he obviously was.

"So," Sam finally says awkwardly. "Guess you decided not to hook up with Alicia, then."

"Her name was Amber," Dean corrects, despite the fact that Sam knows for a fact it wasn't. "And no way. Not happening."

He tipped his drink back.

"Dumb bitch," Dean slurred. "What does she know?"

"It was just a mistake," Sam told him, despite the fact that he didn't really enjoy the idea of white knighting one of Dean's hook-ups. "I don't think she was trying to insult me or anything. I mean, depression's a legitimate illness. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

Dean uncapped a beer and took a swig before looking Sam over for a long moment.

"You ever felt like that, Sammy?"

"What, depressed? Hasn't everyone?" Sam deflected, reaching over to grab his own glass and take a shallow gulp.

Dean paused, drink halfway to his mouth, giving Sam an indecipherable look.

"But you wouldn't ever do that," Dean said. "I mean, kill yourself. Right?"

Sam shrugged. He was pretty sure the answer that Dean was looking for wasn't _'Only for you.__'_

"Would you?" he asked, twirling his glass to watch the ice click together.

Dean shrugged.

Sam really didn't want to think about that that meant.

"I worry," Dean says now, plain and simple, hand still trapping Sam's wrist, fingernail scratching against the edge of the scar tissue.

"I know," says Sam baldy. "Me, too."

"C'n take care of myself," Dean tells him definitively, eyelid twitching a little from the effort of keeping it open. "So quit it."

"You first," Sam whispers, smiling a little.

Yeah, right. The day Dean stops clucking over him like a butch, leather-clad mother bear will be the day Sam knows they've picked up another shifter.

"I'm tired," he says, cheating shamelessly. "Can we sleep now, please?"

"_Yeah_," Dean exhales. "Yes, finally, thank you."

Sam tries not to laugh.

"Dun punch Dad while 'm 'sleep," Dean murmurs, both eyes finally sliding shut.

"I'll do my best," Sam tells him, which sounds a lot more like a promise than it actually is.

He shuffles down on the bed, tugging the scratchy, seashell-emblazoned comforter up over them. He reaches over his brother and clicks off the lamps between the beds. He doesn't bother with the one standing beside the desk John's been working at, knowing their father's just going to turn it back on once he finally emerges from the bathroom. He flops down heavily, throwing his arm back over Dean's chest, one leg finding its way between his brother's legs to hook his ankle around Dean's own.

"Dun hafta pin me, Sammy," Dean mumbles. "M'not goin' anywhere."

"Neither am I," Sam says pointedly, flexing his wrist where Dean has – apparently unconsciously – resumed his death grip.

Dean grunts and let him go, but Sam stays where he is. This feels nice. Comforting, like when he was younger and they used to share space like it was air, back when he could snuggle up against Dean whenever he wanted without anyone accusing him of being girly or acting like a baby. His first instinct as a little kid had always been to plaster himself up against his big brother every time he was upset. He hates to admit it, but he guesses it kind of still is; he'd just learned how to hold himself back once John and, eventually, Dean started telling him to quit it. Some part of Sam has always wondered if he'd feel this same yearning for comfort from Dean if he'd grown up having a mom giving him baths and fixing his scrapes and making his lunches instead of his brother. He guesses he'll never know.

Anyway, girly or not, Sam's not moving until Dean physically makes him, and his brother's definitely not up to that task right now if the snores that are starting to thunder through his chest are any indicator. Sam rests his head against Dean's shoulder, wincing as he puts pressure on his own stitches. But the pain will keep him awake and ready, keep him from slipping too deeply into the sleep his body is so desperately craving. He's got John's bed and the door in his eye line. He'll be ready for it, when it comes.

He shifts closer into the warmth of Dean's body, lets his eyes drift closed, and waits.


	3. Chapter 3

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><p>Morning comes, and with it, the latest edition of the Tribune, which John snatches from the bleary-eyed desk clerk along with three stale cups of coffee and a new distaste for watercolors and seahorse statuary.<p>

After all, there's only so much a man can be expected to deal with after a shadow demon attack and unexpected family reunion pop up all in the same night.

When he checks the paper, John's not surprised that the weather reports have leveled out, that there are no fresh reports of cattle deaths or freak lightning strikes. There's no way Yellow Eye's second-in-command would have stuck around after they slipped its trap last night.

His luck's not that good.

It's back to square one, John reflects grimly as he makes his way back to the room. More sleepless nights combing through papers, hoping that _this_ sign, _this_ omen is the one that pans out, the one that finally leads him to Yellow Eyes, to answers and justice and ending this thing, once and for all.

To peace, for him and the boys.

God, his boys…

He expected that anger from Sam. The rage and betrayal that had been poured out into his voicemail time and time again. He even half-expected the violence, for Sam to throw words aside and let his fists do the talking, like they had with John so many times before, but Dean… Dean who was always there between them, keeping things from going too far? Keeping the fights, as best he could, to just words? Making sure Sam and John didn't do anything they regretted too much?

He hadn't stepped in. Not right away. Not like he used to.

And when he had, tugging Sammy aside and quieting him, talking him down from that hot, wordless fury in an instant, without even looking at John… Not even meeting his father's eye when he made his report about the warehouse…

That wasn't the Dean he knew. Wasn't the soldier he raised, or the son he sent to New Orleans.

And then there's the scars...

John knew about Dean's tangle with the vamp back in Louisiana. He knew Sam had found him in a bad way. But there's a bad way, and then there's the story Dean' s bites told, the angry, arcing half-moons that tore up and down his wrists, his neck, that marred the creases of his elbows, so thick in some places that they swallowed his son's tanned, freckled skin completely, the Dean he knew buried beneath warped, silvery scars and eight months of radio silence.

John has fuck-all for hands on experience with vampires. He'll admit to that in a second, but there's no way in hell a body just _pulls_ _through_ that kind of attack. Not the way Dean did.

Hell, John still remembers getting that voicemail from Dean a couple of days after Sam found him. He'd seen his boy's number pop up and prepared himself for the worst, for another furious message from Sam, for bad news on top of bad news. Then he'd had to sit down hard and fast on the bed of the shitty hotel room he'd found himself in for the night when he heard Dean's voice, clear and healthy as ever, checking in like nothing'd ever happened at all.

John had almost called him back. Had, in that moment, needed so_ fiercely_ to hear from his boy that it almost hurt.

But it wouldn't have been safe. Not for him, not for the boys.

He's regretting not making that call now. Now that eight months have passed, there's no way of knowing if this change between the boys, this new, strange closeness, is something old but new to John, some side effect of their hunting together for so long, or something else entirely…

Because after those bites? After being eaten on that hard for that long?

John knows field medicine. He's got more than twenty years hard experience of what a body can and can't take and after a hurt like that, Dean shouldn't be alive.

He _shouldn't_, and he _is._

And it's that and a hundred other little things that are nagging at John, that just don't seem to gel with his definition of Sam and Dean, of the sons who weren't even speaking eight months ago but are now close, too close, closer than they ever were, even as kids, and it's worrying and worth watching and all happening at the wrong damn time, because goddammit if he can't forget what that pissant lackey screamed right before John sent him to hell in a funnel of black smoke

_It's all about the blood._

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><p>When John reaches the room, the boys are still sprawled across the bed furthest from the door, blankets rumpled and limbs sticking out every which way. Dean's got a fist clenched under the pillow, hand curled around his bowie knife, and Sam's glaring blearily at John, one arm slanting across his brother's chest, like he expects…<p>

Well, John doesn't know what Sammy expects from him. Something not good. Something so far from the truth that it has John's gut clenching and teeth grinding, because Sam should _understand_. He should _know_.

Especially now. Especially after what happened in Palo Alto.

But John doesn't say any of that. Doesn't do anything but set his shoulders and put the coffee on the battered table near the door.

"Get your brother up," he tells Sam over his shoulder as he digs out his phone. "We're burnin' daylight."

If Sam has any problems with John giving him orders, he doesn't say anything, just shoots John a particularly vicious look and nudges Dean awake as he sits up and scrubs a hand across his eyes.

John ignores the insubordination as best he can, instead focusing on dialing his contact in the National Weather Service, the sound of the boys getting up fading into the background along with the dial tone in his ear.

"You get any sleep last night?" his oldest mumbles, yawning blearily as he prods the dressing on his face.

"Dean, don't poke your stitches like that," Sam clucks, batting his brother's hand away.

"That's a 'no', then. You know you can't keep this up, Sammy," Dean persists, only for Sam to ignore good advice and keep fussing at the gauze on Dean's forehead.

"Hold still. That bandage needs changing."

"Ignoring me. That's mature," Dean grumbles, dodging Sam's try at grabbing the dressing on his head to slide out of bed and stumble blindly towards coffee.

"Mornin'," he mumbles to John, who shoots him a nod as his contact finally picks up.

John frowns into his coffee as he's told exactly that he was expecting to hear. No freak lightning storms, no temperature fluctuations, no cyclones. Nothing that even remotely resembles any kind of omen, anywhere, for the last ten hours, at least.

John follows up with the local farms and gets the exact same. No crop failures. No cattle deaths.

Nothing.

He was expecting it. After all, with a busted trap and no luck finding their prey, why would Yellow Eyes' grunts stick around? Their leaving is predictable. It makes sense. It fits their pattern. It's exactly what happened all the other times they tried and failed to make a move on John when he got within reach.

Doesn't mean it doesn't piss him off.

He was _so_ _close_.

"What's the plan?" Sam grumbles when John hangs up, wincing as he tastes the coffee Dean hands him. Kid always would girly up a good cup of joe, given half the chance.

"Head back to the truck, go from there," John answers, taking a drink of his coffee, which tastes just fine to him.

"Awesome. Dibs on the shower," Dean chimes in, tossing his empty styrofoam cup in the vicinity of the bedside table and making for the bathroom.

"Dean!" Sam complains, digging the cup from where it's fallen between the bed and nightstand and making a face when he gets cold dregs on his hand.

John snorts into his own coffee as Sam mutters under his breath and strides to the trashcan near the door.

"I swear, it's like living with a giant six year old," he whines, dropping the cup into the trash. "One who likes beer and porn and IS A TOTAL PIG."

"I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I?" Dean calls from the bathroom.

John chuckles and looks up, but whatever smart remark he was about to make dies when he sees Sam's right arm, bare in front of John for the first time.

Because where before there was only smooth, tanned skin, there's something else now. Something new.

New and, from the looks of it, dating from around the time John left Sam in Louisiana.

Just before Sam got Dean back.

John can practically feel his blood run cold as he stares at the long, crooked scar stretching from Sam's wrist up the length of his arm, nearly to the elbow.

A scar from something big. Something violent.

Something supernatural.

"What did you do?!" he demands, up from the chair in a heartbeat and snatching up his son's wrist, jerking his arm closer. Seeing, not believing, not wanting to believe, because the scar is too long, to thick, too perfect to be from just any injury, just any hunt, and Dean would have called, would have told him if Sam's gun hand had been hurt this bad.

Unless...

"Ow!" Sam snaps when John's hand clenches. "What the hell, Dad?!"

"What. Happened," he grinds out, the possibilities stampeding through his head as he glares at Sam, trying to see something, anything...

"What do you think happened?" Sam challenges, eyes narrowing as his jaw sets, as his entire face clenches into furious, stubborn lines. The lines that harden and freeze his son's face, transform it from Mary's baby, her Sammy, to someone, _something_ else.

John doesn't want to know.

He doesn't, but he has to, because something has been different. Something has been different and wrong between them all ever since he first saw them yesterday, and the possibilities keep racing through John's head, keep giving him awful, horrible explanations for the scar, for their behavior, for how Dean survived after all those bites…

"What. Did. You. Do," he demands again through gritted teeth because this isn't happening. This can't be happening. This can't be happening, but it is, and there's evidence, bad, awful damning evidence as to what that something could be, right under his fingertips, a long, crooked line down his youngest son's arm.

This is happening. This is happening, and he has to do something.

"What did I do?" Sam repeats furiously as he snatches his arm back, too loud and too angry and all that's in John's head, all that he can hear, is that fucking demon, screaming and laughing and taunting him, over and over again.

_It's all about the blood._

_It's all about the blood._

_It's all about the blood._

"I did what I had to do!" Sam is shouting, clenching his fists and getting in John's face. "I did what needed to be done, Dad! I did what I had to do to save Dean! To _protect_ Dean! Because I was there! I was there for him, and you weren't! You _never _were!"

"Hey! Hey!" Dean shouts, bursting out of the bathroom with a towel clenched around his waist, shouldering between them, suds dripping as he glares between his father and brother. "What, I can't leave you two alone for ten goddamn minutes now?"

This can't be happening.

It can't be true. There has to be another explanation.

Any other explanation.

"Dean—" Sam protests, but Dean cuts him off.

"Go pack. _Now_," he orders, and Sam rolls his eyes, stomping off to throw things in his bag with his mouth pinched as Dean turns to John.

"Wh—" John begins, but Dean cuts him off, too, his face tight and shuttered.

"We're going out to breakfast," Dean announces, still not entirely meeting John's eye. "Let everyone cool down before we head out."

"Check-out's at nine," John mutters shortly, refusing to feel like he's disappointed Dean.

Dean, who spent the first two years Sam was at college not-so-subtly trying to get he and John to reconcile. Dean, who gets that rigid, hollow look in his face whenever John fights with Sam.

Dean, who might…

But John can't think about that right now. He has to focus.

Has to figure this out.

"We know what time check-out is. We're not stupid," snaps Sam as he strides past the two of them and out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

"We'll swing back by, pick you up," Dean offers, rifling through his duffle for a fresh pair of jeans.

"Don't bother," John dismisses, his mind going through the timeline, the possibilities as he gathers his notes and cellphone from the table, shoves them into his jacket. "I've got to look into something. Meet you two later."

John can see the doubt cross Dean's face, see his mouth twist, see him wanting to ask if later means a few hours or another eight months from now.

He doesn't. Doesn't cross that line into insubordination. But the thought is there.

John logs it away, files it with everything else, and walks out on his son. Sons.

And honestly, he doesn't know if he'll be back.


	4. Chapter 4

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><p>Dean hates that he lets out a deep breath when the door slams behind John.<p>

He hates that his fists relax and his stomach unclenches with the exhale, with the silence in the empty room. He hates it, because when did this happen? When did things become harder with Dad than without? When did it stop being about family and start being about us versus him?

Dean knows that Sammy and Dad have always been able to needle each other, to know just which buttons to push at just the right time for maximum fireworks. But even before, even the last time they were all together like this, with fresh-outta-high-school Sam antsy and secretive, growing and growling and so angry all the damn time, even then it wasn't this bad.

Dad being so cagey when they were supposed to work as a family. Sam lashing out with words and fists at every chance he got. Dad returning his barbs, word for word and blow for blow. Sammy refusing to sleep. Not letting John out of his sight. Not trusting their dad to stay, or to leave, or to... _anything_.

And Dean used to try and keep the peace, to try and make things work, but Dad— And Sam—

He just doesn't think about things the same way he used to. Ever since Louisiana. Ever since that basement... and after. And then all those months with Sammy...

He and Sam had a good thing going on. Have for a while now, and it's Sammy and him, and they hunt things. Save people.

Save each other.

And there's gotta be a way to make that work here, to just figure out how Dad can fit, how they can all be happy. Dean knows how fix things, how to make 'em work again. Outside of hunting, it's what he's best at.

He's not the same five year old holding his baby brother in a Kansas hotel room, hoping that if he was good enough, if he could keep Sammy quiet enough, maybe Dad wouldn't leave this time.

He's older now. Smarter. Scarier.

And Dean knows that, knows it like he knows Sam, and he knows how it should be.

How it is.

They're older now, and they can take care of themselves. Of each other. But that doesn't mean that Dad's out of the picture. That things can't work out somehow, he and Sammy and Dad...

It's just getting harder to take Dad's side, that's all.

Dean refuses to read anymore in to that. Refuses to examine it or probe it for deeper meaning, just gets dressed, shoves his crap into a duffle, and snags Sam's bags before blowing out of that damn motel room and straight to the Impala, where his brother is waiting with crossed arms and a sour look on his face.

Dammit, it's gonna be impossible to get him to eat after all this.

"Where the hell'd he run off to?" Sam grumbles, glaring at the pavement as he leans against the driver's side door and squints in the weak morning sun.

"Said he had to look into something, meet up with us later," Dean answers as he fishes in his pocket for the keys. "You driving?"

"'Meet up with us later,' like this morning later, or 'meet up with us later' like another eight months later?" his brother demands, not moving.

"Morning, noon, night, I don't know, Sam!" Dean whines. "It's early, I haven't eaten anything yet. Can we stop fighting and just get in the damn car already?"

Sam rolls his eyes, mouth still tight as he holds out his hands for the keys, but he shoves the box of tapes at Dean as they pull out of the parking lot, so things could be worse.

Sam stays quiet through the drive to the nearest diner, but the tension in his face softens a little by the time Dean starts singing along with "Fight the Good Fight", and by the time he's air guitaring along with the bridge, he's pretty sure Sam is working to hide a grin, so the morning isn't a total loss.

By the time they reach the diner and scrunch themselves into a cramped booth, the frustration has more or less bled out of his little brother, but he's still quiet, working through whatever's going through his too-brainy brain on his own as Dean takes advantage of his little mental vacation to order them coffees and enough greasy breakfast food to knock out a horse.

Their coffees arrive, and Dean watches as Sam accepts his from the waitress with a quiet nod of thanks, moving to dump in cream and sugar before he finally looks up and meets Dean's waiting eye.

"Are we too close?" he asks uncomfortably, hands twisted around the steaming mug in front of him.

"What, you wanna leave room for Jesus?" Dean snorts, giving Sam a light kick in the ankle where their feet are tangled beneath the table.

Sam gives him a bitchface and kicks back, and Dean sends a sugar packet spinning at his head.

"I dunno," Sam hedges, picking the sugar from his lap with a shrug and worrying it between his fingers, "Seemed to be weirding dad out, s'all."

"Yeah, I'm sure _that__'__s _what was weirding him out," Dean snorts in response, leaning back as their waitress sets their food in front of them.

"What?" Sam demands, glaring at Dean as he butters his toast.

"Dude, you spent the whole night bird-doggin' him to make sure he didn't ditch out on us," Dean laughs, forking up an egg, "You really think your definition of weird is the one we wanna go by?"

"Dean, you know what I mean!" Sam scowls, dropping the toast and crossing his arms, then making a face when butter gets on his shirt.

"Yeah. Okay, crazy."

That gets a laugh out of Sam.

"You're such an asshole," he grins, throwing half a sausage link at Dean.

Because he is awesome and has the best hunter-reflexes on Earth, Dean catches it in his mouth and chows down.

"Seriously," Dean tosses back through a mouthful of tasty, tasty pork byproduct. "He's probably just thrown off by you general delusional... ness and, let's be honest here, _rampant_ paranoia."

"Dude, you sleep with a knife under your pillow," Sam says through a bite of toast.

"Which is a smart and not at all crazy thing to do when your job is chasing after monsters that want to kill you," Dean justifies, eyeing his brother's plate critically. Sam's barely touched his food, and if this spat with Dad has him going all hunger strike again...

"Whatever," Sam dismisses as he pokes at his eggs experimentally. "Anyway, I was right. The second I left the room, Dad ditched."

"He's just making some calls or something. He'll be back," Dean won't meet Sam's eyes, but that's only because salting hashbrowns is serious business, and it requires his full concentration.

He definitely doesn't look up when Sam snorts into his coffee at the remark, because what good could possibly come of that?

He doesn't want to see that condescending, you're-hopeless-and-stupid look in Sammy's eyes, the one his little brother gets when he thinks Dean's wanting them to have a family – wanting to be around Dad at all – is completely pointless. It always cuts Dean right to the core, and it always ends in lines drawn and voices raised and hours of cold silence and simmering anger. They don't need that. It's early, and they've already had one fight today.

Dean doesn't want to be the one picking the next one.

So instead of looking up, of daring Sam to say out loud what his look implies, of being forced to argue with his baby brother about family and loyalty and all that deep, traumatizing crap, Dean shoves it down.

He eats his hashbrowns and nudges Sam's plate a little closer in the hopes that his brother might at least get one good meal in today. He focuses on the white noise of the diner, the oldies playing on the static-y radio, the sizzle of eggs on the griddle, and the feeling of Sam's knees bumping his under the table, their feet tangled up against one another again as his big, annoying little brother tries to get out of having to finish all the food on his plate, rolling his eyes and complaining and trying not to smile as Dean pokes the sausage and eggs on his plate so that they make a face.

They don't talk about how Sam doesn't trust Dad. They don't talk about Dad's freakout over Sam's arm or Dean's increasingly half-hearted defenses of their father.

But Sam eats his first real meal in two days, and they're both grinning by the time they slide out of the booth, so in the end, Dean counts breakfast as a win.

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><p>John stares down at the phone in his hand, really not looking forward to this part.<p>

He knows he has to. This isn't a matter of pride anymore, it's a matter of safety.

His family's safety.

No matter how much he doesn't want to do this, not matter how much bitching and bickering he's going to have to put up with, he needs to know. Has to know. Not just for himself, but for all of them.

Taking a deep breath, and wishing hard that he had a shot of something to make everything go down easier, he presses 'dial' and waits.

"Yeah?"

"What did he do?" John demands as soon as the Bobby answers the phone.

"Who? And when?" the older hunter asks, sounding more confused than he has any right to.

"You know who," John grinds out, barely keeping his temper in check, barely keeping himself from jumping in the nearest car and burning rubber to Sioux Falls and beating the truth out of Bobby Singer, because if anyone outside of the boys know what happened, it's their old _"uncle"_. The same old drunk who was always there, always undermining John and spoiling the boys, always throwing his two cents in whenever and wherever it wasn't wanted.

"John," Bobby begins, and it sounds like a warning. It sounds like reason and caution and good sense, and _fuck_ that.

This is his _family_. His _son_.

He deserves to know. He has a _right_ to know.

"How did he get the damn scar, Bobby?!" John shouts into the phone, and he doesn't care anymore, he doesn't. He has to get to the bottom of this, has to understand how and why, because if what he thinks happened...

"How?" the other hunter demands, voice rising furiously. "I'll tell you how! Savin' his brother's life, that's how! That boy is a baby, John! A BABY! Never been on a solo hunt in his life, and you send his ass to New Orleans? Alone? After FAMILY? You must be outside your damn mind!"

"Singer, I didn't call you to—" John snaps back defensively, only to be interrupted by the older hunter.

"No, you called me to spy on your own damn sons!" Bobby accuses. "You wanna know what they've been doin', John? Takin' care of each other, the only way you taught them how! You're not happy with how that turned out for ya? Too damn bad!"

Bobby sounds furious and proud and superior, all at once, and it makes John's blood boil, reminds him just why he took his boys and left the old drunk in the dust all those years ago. He is their _father_, their blood, and he doesn't have to put up with this shit.

"Listen, you—"

"No, you listen to me you selfish son of a bitch!" Bobby cuts him off. "I don't know anything they wouldn't tell you, you ask the right damn questions! You're always makin' a point to tell me who their father is? Well go on, _Dad_. Talk to your damn sons."

There's the sound of a receiver being thrown in the cradle and then silence.

It's not the first time John Winchester's been on the business end of one of Bobby Singer's parting shots, but it is the first where he'd have preferred it if the old hunter had just hauled off and used a gun on him instead.

John knows that if he calls back, Bobby'll just hang up on him. He also knows that if he does make the trip to Sioux Falls, he'll come back with a few extra bullet holes but no more intel than if he turned around and tracked down Sam and Dean, followed up on this himself.

But there is someone else who might know, either by hearin' it through the grapevine or shootin' the shit with Bobby Singer. It's a long shot, and he has no right to even think about it, not with 'Winchester' bein' a four letter word in that household...

But it's worth a try.

John looks down at his phone and really, _really_ wishes he was in a bar. At least there he'd have a bottle of somethin' to maybe find his good sense at the bottom of. But as it is, he's in the middle of nowhere, Illinois with this being the lesser of two pretty goddamn unpleasant evils.

He punches in the number, grits his teeth, and listens to it ring once... twice... and then:

"Harvelle's Roadhouse."

"Ellen," John gets out, slow and heavy, but then Bill's wife is cuttin' him off like it's her business, like she's about to give him shit for givin' her a card they both know is fake to cover his tab.

Like nothing happened between him and Bill at all.

"Bobby already called me, John," Ellen says into the phone, and John can practically see her shaking her head, rollin' her eyes like she was the only one born on this earth with any sense.

"Goddammit, _how_?" John curses angrily. It's one thing if Bobby Singer takes it on himself to be the unofficial hunter's dispatch, but another entirely to be airing John's dirty laundry to Ellen Goddamn Harvelle.

"He didn't stare at the phone for twenty minutes tryin' to decide whether or not to take a shot of bourbon first," she tosses back, and dammit if John doesn't hate them both right now.

"Come on, Ellen," he bites out.

"Don't you 'Come on, Ellen," me, John Winchester," she snaps. "Why the hell do you think I know anything? Last time I met the boys Sam was in diapers and Dean couldn't even read. They probably don't even remember me, they certainly don't call to chat, and if Bobby did tell me anything, which he _didn't_, it would be none of your damn business. Have I made myself clear?"

John snaps the phone shut, ignores it's buzzing as Ellen's number flashes across the screen once, twice, then goes silent. Ellen and Bobby won't tell him, fine. He can find out himself.

John knows it means he's a weaker man, but he wanted there to be another way.

Any other way.


	5. Chapter 5

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><p>Dean's phone rings just as they're paying for breakfast.<p>

It's a number he doesn't recognize, and when he flashes it to Sam, his little brother shakes his head.

"Hello?" he answers, phone sandwiched between his head and shoulder as he tucks this week's scammed credit card back into his wallet.

"This ain't me picking sides," a rough, angry female voice snarls on the other end of the line. "I'm calling you 'cause your dumbass daddy don't pick up the damn phone. You tell him, he wants help on a hunt or to know how the hell I'm doin', he can call, but he want's dirt on his own kids he can goddamn go to the next page in his ever-lovin' address book! You morons talk about your damn problems, you hear?"

"Yes… ma'am?" Dean replies, very, _very _confused.

"All right," the woman sighs. "Jesus, I thought Jo and I had issues…"

"Yes, ma'am?" Dean nods, trying to catch up. Who the hell is this lady? And who the hell is Joe?

"You take care now. Tell your brother I said 'Hi.'"

"Yes, ma'am," he answer automatically, staring at the phone after a definitive 'clunk' announces the line going dead.

"What the hell was that?" Sam laughs, head cocked and amused smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

"Dude, I don't even know," Dean shakes his head, putting his phone away. "Someone dad pissed off."

Sammy snorts, makes some crack about whoever it was havin' to get in line, but Dean is trying to work out what the woman on the phone said. What she meant by John lookin' for dirt on his kids.

It's just the latest in a long line of weird and unsettling for them. There was Dad and Sammy's fight in the motel room, Dad's storming off after that, and now this pissed off mystery woman calling to yell at Dean for stuff she should have no idea is even going on.

So what? What's that supposed to mean?

Dad's brushing up on what they've been doing this past year? Calling other people in the business to check up on their work? Why? Why not just ask them? Why not just pick up the phone or, you know, stick around to talk about it?

It's too many questions this early in the morning, and he's got a feeling in his gut that whatever the answers are, he's not gonna like any of 'em.

"Where to next?" Sam asks as soon as they've crossed the diner parking lot and are back in the Impala, and of course, trust Sammy to zero in on the question Dean is pretty specifically focused on ignoring.

He's just having that kind of day.

Dean isn't looking forward to this part. Really, he isn't, because either Dad _has_ left them, which means who knows how long of tracking him down again, or Dad _hasn__'__t_ left them, which means another fun time of joy and excitement defusing the bomb that is Sam and John Winchester in the same ZIP code.

Dean grits his teeth and dials Dad on his cell. He can feel Sammy watching him, and he is not looking forward to what happens next as John's phone rings... and rings... and rings... and rings... and then tells him that John can't be reached, but if this is an emergency, to call his son, Dean.

"I knew it," Sam announces after Dean's left his stilted, awkward message. "I _knew_ it! He blew town, Dean. What did I tell you? What did I say?"

"Shaddup," Dean dismisses as he cranks his baby and pulls onto the highway. "Guy never picks up anyway. That doesn't prove anything."

"Where do you think you're going, Dean?" Sam demands. "We don't know where Dad is! We don't know where he's going or—"

"He's got an arsenal in that truck," Dean interrupts. "Gotta go back for it sooner or later. It's that or let it get towed."

"So this's what it's come to? Staking out Dad?" Sam bites out. "Trying to outmaneuver him all the damn time, just so we can stay on this hunt with him? Just so we can do our job?"

"Sammy, no one knows how to hunt this thing like Dad, you know that."

"Yeah," Sam growls, "and that's fucking frustrating because he's an unstable jerk-ass who couldn't wait twelve hours to leave us in the dust."

"Sam—"

"What the hell was that back in the motel, then? With my arm and you and- _everything_?" Sam demands. "And now he's gone, AGAIN! That scream normal to you? Even a little? Even for him?"

"No? I don't know, Sam..." Dean's trying, he is, but he doesn't know, and that's starting to get to him.

"Well, we need answers," Sam sets his jaw. "And you're right. Everything he's got is in his truck. He'll come back to it eventually."

"Sam," Dean starts as they pull up to the alley where the truck is parked.

"What, Dean? What?" Sam demands, testy and pissed and of course he is. When is he not, today?

"You know what, never mind," Dean dismisses, angry and shut down and tired of fighting with every single member of his family all the damn time.

"No, please," Sam tosses sarcastically, gesturing to the empty alley. "Not like we have anything better to do. _Share_."

"Fine," Dean bites out, because if Sammy wants to be bitchy and sarcastic and not let it go, he can work with that. "Sorry Dad was a dick to you about your fucking arm. Sorry you caught heat for something that was my fault. Sorry my screw-up caused another huge fucking fight, okay? Sorry."

"Dean..." Sam says, anger cracking, thawing in an instant to soft and fuzzy and hurt, and of course, _now_ Sam is a big, sad puppy. Of course, now that _Dean_ snaps and lets out his building frustration with their situation, it's mean and hurts people and Sammy's eyes are doing that big, hazel Sarah-McLachlan-Feed-the-Children thing.

Goddammit. Now he feels like shit.

"Forget about it," he mutters, glaring a hole in the dash.

"Dean, no. I'm sorry," Sam apologizes, and at the very least, he's dialed the dewy, sensitiveness down to five. "It's not your fault."

Dean snorts, because if Sammy was gonna lie to him, he could have at least picked a better one than that.

"Hey. I'm serious," he insists, "I didn't get a lot of sleep last night-"

Dean can't help but roll his eyes at that one, something Sam notices and bitchfaces about accordingly.

"And I may be a little... _frustrated_ about a lot of things." Sam continues; Dean squashes the urge to mutter 'premenstrual' under his breath. "Sorry I... took it out on you."

Dean waits a beat and then notices the mood in the Impala.

There is a _feeling_ now. A familiar one.

"Oh, God," he whines. "Do we have to hug now?"

"Shut up," Sam laughs, and shoves Dean in the arm. Dean goes with it, shoves back, enjoys as much as he can of this Sammy, laughing and playful, before—

"This what you boys call a stakeout?" a voice barks from just outside the driver's side window, and they both start.

Before_ that_ happens.

Dean tries not to hate the way Sam's face shutters when he sees Dad. Tries not to resent their father for putting the tight, watchful, perpetual glare on his little brother's face.

It doesn't work so well.


	6. Chapter 6

Sorry for the late update, guys! Real life just got in the way this week. Thanks for reading!

* * *

><p>A few barked orders and a minor argument later, they end up firing up the Impala, following John in his truck to an abandoned cabin outside of town, the place sagging and skeevey even by their standards.<p>

"Well, this settles it, Sammy," Dean remarks as they pulls up the crooked, pot hole-ridden drive. "Dad's the Unabomber."

Sam tries not to laugh as he gets out of the car, door slamming in unison with Dean's as they both look up at the battered, beaten excuse for a house poking out from a scraggly knot of woods.

"We should have known better than to laugh off all those Kaczynski frame-up conspiracy theories," Sam agrees with a grin.

"Hurry it up, boys," John barks. "Not safe to be out in the open like this!"

Sam rolls his eyes, grabbing his laptop bag and duffle, and trudges up the rocky, scrubby lawn behind Dean into the cabin, which is...

Well, it's pretty obviously abandoned, pretty obviously a long time ago.

Judging from the smell, something may or may not have died in it.

Judging from the stain Sam can see on the warped hardwood floor as he drops his bag next to Dean's on one of the cabin's two, sagging cots, _someone_ may have died in it.

But it's isolated and, according to Dad at least, safe. For now.

"How'd you find this place?" He asks.

"Needed backup digs when I was chasin' the demon in Chicago. This fit the bill," John answers, turning to Sam and Dean.

"We're gonna need to dig in, keep an eye out for wherever they're gonna pop up next," he gravels. "Sam, I need you to make a supply run. Salt, food, the works."

"I'll go with him," Dean nods, digging the keys from his jeans and making for the door, only for Dad to interrupt.

"Dean, I need you to stay here."

"What? Why?" Sam protests, because hell if he's gonna take _that_ one lying down.

"Got a lot of research in the truck, need someone to help lay it out," John grumbles, dropping his bag by the window before turning to head back out to the truck.

"I don't want to leave you alone with him," Sam hisses, stepping to Dean and getting a grip on the sleeve of his jacket.

Dean turns to shoot him an incredulous look.

"Dude, don't be paranoid," he whispers back, shaking off Sam's hold, but not moving away. "Just go, pick up whatever we need. It'll be fine. What the hell do you think is gonna happen?"

Sam can't help that his eyes dart to Dean's neck, to the smooth, arcing bite scars peeking out at the edge of his collar.

They're not as noticeable anymore now that they've faded to pale, silvery shadows on his brother's skin. From a distance, you wouldn't even know they were there, especially not with the layers they wear.

But Sam and Dean are close, up in each other's orbit as always, and as Sam looks down, not even his brother's leather jacket, flipped high against the collar of his flannel shirt, can completely hide that monster's handiwork.

"Seriously?" Dean spits out under his breath, seeing exactly where Sam's eyes go, figuring out just what's playing in his mind. "You think he's what? Got a vamp friend stashed somewhere who wants to play?"

"Dean, don't be ridiculous," Sam scoffs. "I just don't—"

"You don't what, Sammy?" Dean demands, and of course he's defensive, of course he's on Dad's side, just like always. Why wouldn't he be? The man only dropped him on his ass and left him to die.

"I don't trust him," Sam spits out, because he doesn't. Not even a little. Not for this.

He stopped trusting his father to do what was in his and Dean's best interest a long time ago, and his being in under the same roof doesn't change that one bit.

"Something happens," Sam growls, "I don't trust him not to fuck off and leave you again."

"Sam, he wasn't even there last time!" Dean groans, exasperated, and Sam doesn't care, he doesn't, because this is _important_, dammit.

"My point exactly!" Sam bursts out. "He's _never_ there, Dean, not when we need him!"

And he's not. He's never been. Not when they were little, not when they were growing. Not even now that they're grown. John's never been anything but a voice telling Sam he's not good enough, a shadow over their lives telling Sam how wrong he is, telling Dean he's always letting the family down by being anything less than the perfect soldier.

Like being John's puppet is more important than being Sam's brother.

"You're being ridiculous, Sam," Dean grits out, his mouth tight and so, so like John that it burns Sam, boils his blood in a hot, uncomfortable, desperate rush because this is Dean and he's not supposed to _be_ like this.

He's not supposed to be like him. Not now. Not ever.

"He's gonna leave, Dean, and what if we're alone when it happens?" Sam demands, control fraying because last time- last time- last time can't happen again. It can't.

"What if he splits us up and something happens and I can't get to you in time?" he presses, because Dean needs to understand, he has to understand. "Or you can't get to me? That's how he works Dean, you know that. And with us? It never seems to play out right, you know?"

He sighs, shoving a hand through his hair. And he's frustrated, can't seem to make the words fit, because how do you articulate that?

How do you put into words the awful, gut-clenching feeling of being on a job and splitting up and then suddenly the tables turn and the ground goes out from under you because he's _gone_ and the world doesn't work like that, and there's never any time, never enough lore or evidence or tracks or air in the room, because Dean is missing and might be- could be- for _real_ this time.

No shifters. No faith healers. No visions. No take backs or second chances or "Just kidding, Sammy."

Just Dean, gone.

How many times is Sam gonna have to live through that? How's Sam supposed to deal with that? To prepare for it?

He can't. Won't.

And he's not gonna set himself up for it, not gonna let Dean be set up for that by blindly following John Winchester's piss-poor plan of the week.

"I'm worried," he finishes, grimly. "I don't like being in the dark like this."

Sam knows his strengths, what he's good at. Dean's the one with the experience, the sheer man-hours on the job. Dean's the con artist, able to make anything you need to go anywhere you want with just a few hours in the Copy Jack and a can-do attitude. Dean's the soldier, the marksman, the guy you call when you need an IED made up or a bullet put into someone through the eye of a needle a mile and a half away.

But Sam?

Sam knows his strength isn't physical.

Sure, he's tall enough, and no slouch in a fight, but he's light-years better in a library, digging through data and connecting the dots, linking this death to that one to the right lore or legend that will end the case for good, that will give him and his brother what they need to slam the case shut and burn its bones. The same mind and memory that got him the grades at Stanford gets him through every lock he meets, every car he has to steal, every database he needs to get into.

And the thing is, Dean can do all that, too. He can crack a case just as easily as he can jack a door or finesse his way into any building or databank a case may call for, but he lets Sam do it. Because it's what Sam's good at.

It's what he's comfortable with, what lets him take the stress and rage and insanity that is their everyday grind and assimilate it into something manageable, something normal.

And that is why, right now, on this hunt, more than any other they've ever faced, Sam needs to know what's going on. He needs John to level with them.

And he needs his big brother to back him on that.

"Sammy, listen, it's gonna be fine," Dean gets a hand on Sam's shoulder, his voice smooth and confidant and reassuring. "You'll get us set up for supplies. Go nuts, buy nothin' but rabbit food if you want."

Sam rolls his eyes, because yeah, that'd go over great with everyone. Hell, he stocked the cooler with light beer during one case and Dean didn't let him hear the end of it for a month.

"And then we'll dig into dad's research, you'll use that freaky Stanford brain to solve the whole thing in ten minutes," his brother grins, his hand a warm, comforting weight on his shoulder, "and I can watch you and dad fight for the cot without the syph."

"Those beds are disgusting, even for us," Sam laughs quietly, bringing a hand up to cover Dean's, his thumb tracing over the edge of a scar, thin and slivery, just peeking over the top edge of Dean's wrist.

"I know, right?" Dean nods sagely, then leans in to Sam like he's gonna share some big secret. "I think I saw the one by the door moving."

Sam lets out a half-hearted grin. That joke was weak even by Dean's standards, but he's Dean and even if it was a bad joke, it breaks a little of the tension in Sam, enough that he's letting his head fall forward, bangs brushing and tangling against the gelled bristle of his brother's hair.

"You good, Sammy?" Dean asks quietly, and Sam nods, unclenching a little as he takes in Dean's warmth. The feel of their hands overlapping, the scent and shape of his brother around him chasing the demons away.

"Something the matter?" John growls, box of research thumping down on the cabin's single, rickety table.

"No, sir," Sam and Dean answer in unison stepping apart, and this time, when Dean nudges Sam towards the door with a hand on the small of his back, he goes.

But he still can't shake the feeling that something, something bad, is gonna happen.


	7. Chapter 7

Thanks for reading, guys!

* * *

><p>True to his word, Dad sets Dean to hauling research out of the truck as soon as Sammy backs the Impala out of the drive.<p>

There are boxes of the stuff stacked in the truck's bed beneath the cover, and after Dean and John haul them all in, John refuses to let Dean touch any of it, just sends his son to go lay down salt lines and clean weapons as he starts sifting through the crates of maps, newspaper clippings, and handwritten notation that makes up the length and breadth of his knowledge on the monster that killed Mom.

Dean tries not to feel frustrated, to question why Dad made such a big deal of him sticking around to help if all he needed was an extra pair of hands haulin' boxes. He tries really hard not to think of how much better it would have been to go with Sammy, who, for all of Dean's joking, is almost definitely gonna get reamed out by Dad, no matter what he brings back.

It doesn't ever seem really fair, because sometimes Dad doesn't give a shit what kind of beer or food you bring, as long as he has somethin' to drink and eat, but other times...

It just might have been better to have Dean along, that's all. He knows Dad better, after all. Always has. And that's not Sammy's fault, it isn't. Dean's just spent more time with the man.

And then there's Sam's visions to think about.

Dean hasn't brought it up to Sam, but he's seen the way his little brother gets when he has them. The headaches, the grabbing at himself against the pain, trying to sort out what's real and what's being forced to the front of his mind, and there's no tellin' when they'll happen. The best they've got is that they pop up in some relation to the psychic kids, the ones targeted by the demon that got Mom and Jess.

The same demon whose heels they're on right now.

Dean's worried.

He's worried that Sam'll go Miss Cleo when his big brother's not around to take care of him, and then things'll go to shit for them all, either because someone is around and decides to play good Samaritan and blow the lid off the whole thing or because...

God, Sam'd clock him one if he ever knew Dean had even _thought_ this, but dammit, he's worried, alright?

He's worried his little brother'll be driving, alone, and the pain'll hit, and he'll be hunched in on himself, tryin' to figure out what's happening in the real world and what's happening in his head and then...

Then Dean'll get a call from the state troopers and have to go identify his baby brother's body from where he's wrapped that damn car he never could drive right around a tree.

So, yeah. Dean's really worried.

He's worried the second he turns his back, this whole psychic thing is gonna turn around and bite them right on the ass.

He can't say any of this to Sammy, though. Kid's already touchy as hell about seeing things that haven't happened yet, Dean's not gonna make it worse by flappin' his trap about shit that might not even go down.

Of course, that was a hell of a lot easier to do when Dad wasn't sending Sammy off on his own for no damn reason.

And what the hell is Dean gonna do about that? Say, 'Sorry Dad, Sammy needs someone with him 'cause he might go all Psychic Friends in the middle of the freeway?'

Yeah. That'd go over great.

They haven't said anything about the visions to John. To anyone. It's too dangerous. Too risky for _anyone_, especially a hunter, and especially a hunter like Dad, who won't stand questions once he's made a decision, who might-

Well. It's just better he doesn't know, for now.

"You all right over there?" Dad asks, looking up from where he's moved from sorting research to tacking papers to the wall of the cabin in an order that must have some logic to him but looks random as hell to Dean.

"Yeah," Dean answers, more to the shotgun barrel he's cleaning than anyone else. "Cleaning guns. Same old, same old."

"Been meaning to ask," John starts, and Dean hates that he notices how too-casual his voice is, how wrong the forced lightness sounds coming from his dad. "What happened to Sammy's arm? Looked pretty bad, last I saw."

"It's a... kind of a long story," Dean stalls, and he can see his dad note the pause, 'cause he's a good hunter, dammit, and he knows an interrogation when he hears it and he hates so much being on the business end of the same stone-wall look John shoots a suspect before he busts them for being a witch or hoodoo baddie or something else evil.

Something else to be hunted.

"I got time," is John's only response, and Dean knows he doesn't have a choice here, really, he doesn't. So he starts, slow at first, to be sure that it's the right parts of the story getting out, to be sure that John knows that there's nothing to be suspicious of. No one but Dean who needs to be in hot water over this one.

"It was my fault," Dean sighs, putting down the gun he's cleaning and setting his elbows on his knees, cleaning the gun oil from his hands with a rag. "When Sammy found me in Louisiana, I was in bad shape. Real bad."

Dean has to scrub a hand over his face. Even now, the memories of Sam's face strung out on fear and exhaustion on the other side of those bars... The sound of that damn vampire throwing his baby brother around like a rag doll, kicking the life out of him while Dean watched, weak and trapped and useless...

Even now, it's a lot.

He has to start again, from another point in the story, and it doesn't mean he's weak, dammit, it's just that there's background here, stuff Dad needs to understand.

"You remember that case with the pagans, back when Sammy and I were kids? You made us brush up on field medicine for a few weeks after?" Dean asks, continuing at John's nod. "Well, Sammy remembered it all. Used it to give me a transfusion after."

God, he can still remember that hotel room, rank with blood and fear, Sammy torn up and fraying at the edges as he jolts awake every ten minutes to check on Dean.

He never should have had to do that. He never should have had to do any of it.

"You watched him do it?" John probes, sitting on the cot across from Dean, wall of research abandoned.

"No," Dean shakes his head, "I was out, woke up a while after with Nurse Ratched checkin' my vitals."

"Do you remember it at all? Sam getting to you, anything after?"

Like he could forget the sound of Sammy taking that vamp apart with a fucking shovel. Dean's pretty sure that first sharp, metallic scrape, the grind of bone and spurt of blood, shooting clear from the vamp's neck to splash across his little brother's face as his Sammy, the kid he practically raised, hacked the thing apart with a ferocity, a rage, Dean had never seen in him before is gonna stay with him the rest of his life.

On the inside, Dean shivers. Outwardly though, he just shrugs.

"I remember Sam killin' the thing, carryin' me out, but then I start to lose it," Dean mutters, not meeting his father's eye. "Everything else until I woke up is pretty much a wash."

He remembers Sam hauling him out of the cage. Dragging him out of that basement. Remembers burying himself in Sammy and just letting go, because his brother was here and the thing was dead and he could, finally.

"That's all you've got?" Dad demands, a little expectantly. A little like Dean's let him down somehow.

"Yeah," Dean nods, and he tries to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, tries to keep the frustration, the disappointment, the...anger at having his father reduce the nightmare he lived through in that basement, the hell that tore Sammy up from the inside out, that brought them both closer to the brink than they'd ever been before, to a dismal 'That's all?'

"Sorry. I wasn't in the best shape at the time," Dean bites out, standing. "You need me in here, or can I hit the head?"

John dismisses him, goes back to brooding and papering the wall of the cabin with notes.

Dean doesn't slam the bathroom door behind him, but he wants to.

He takes a deep breath, runs the faucet, and splashes some water on his face, shoving down a hundred different feelings he's too fucked-up to name, feelings that just keep surging back with every sharp, brisk rustle of John setting back to work in the main room, hot and heady and so, so hard to ignore in the hollow, heavy vacuum of the cabin.

He can hear everything, feel everything, the muffled thump of shifted crates and the absent give and take of a draft pushing in, out and around and through the cracks and chinks in the cabin's dilapidated walls, and it's just Dean and John and the air, thick to bursting with everything they won't say, can't say, aren't saying about Sam and Dean and what did happen, what didn't, what Dad does think or doesn't, and it's all so old and so new and so, so much easier to fucking handle with his brother there, razor-sharp wit cutting right to the heart of the tension, slicing through bullshit silences with bloody, uncompromising directness, and it's not like Dean agrees with just taking the safety off and coming after Dad for stuff like that, but it's just- it's different, facing it alone.

It's different, having this new Dad, this Dad that looks at them like he's trying to make the pieces fit, the case add up, staring down the barrel at him.

And it's not like Dean blames him, not like he doesn't know that he screwed up, big time, getting snatched and having to drag them both in to come after him, going to pieces and letting it get so bad his little brother had to maim himself to keep his sorry ass alive. That's on him, and he owns it.

But having Dad look at him like he's on trial every goddamn minute? Stuck in this one goddamn room with nothing but all this shit that neither of them is fucking saying? The gavel up, always a beat from coming down on him? No rest, no reprieve, no break or room to breathe, just guilt and glares and-

And it's just easier to handle with someone else there, that's all.

The sooner Sammy gets back, the better.

For a lot of reasons.

* * *

><p>Eventually, Sam does return from his supply run, crossing the salt lines to slam food and hunting supplies into cabinets with equal disdain after he makes sure to leave a container of salt and a bag of takeout placed perfectly, infuriatingly, exactly on top of Dad's most frequently consulted pile of paper scraps.<p>

How he managed to figure out which pile that would be in the time it took for him to open the door and walk to the table will remain a mystery.

Dean snags his and Sammy's food from the bag while John's got his back turned building his wall of research. If his dad tosses the stuff because it's in his way, that's his choice, but Dean's starving and Sam skips enough meals as it is.

"Have fun with Dad?" Sam asks lightly, making a beeline for Dean when he's finished stuffing supplies into the cabin's peeling cabinets, nudging at him until he passes over Sam's food.

"Yeah," Dean nods, avoiding Sam's eye as he shoves his and Sam's bags to the floor before plopping onto the cot and unwrapping his burger. "It was lollipops and unicorns. Did you get extra onions?"

"No, I didn't." Sam grabs them sodas and shoves at Dean until he scoots over, flopping down next to him and unwrapping his own sandwich. "Your burger breath is bad enough without doubling your onion intake, Dean."

"I smell amazing!" Dean protests through a mouthful of fry, trying and failing to ignore how he's crammed on a rusted out army surplus cot, Sam's elbows jamming into every bruised rib he's got, too-big little brother fighting with the cot springs over who gets to be a bigger pain in his ass as his burger gets colder by the minute, and feeling better, lighter, than he has in hours.

"Yeah, you're a picture of grace and charm," Sam snorts, popping the cap on one of the drinks before passing it over to Dean and looking up to where their dad continues to paper the wall with his notes.

"He been like that the whole time?" he asks quietly, solemn watchfulness seeping in and swallowing the laughter in his eyes as he takes another bite of the burger.

"Pretty much," Dean nods after a swig of Coke, wincing and throwing a glare at Sam when he realizes it's diet.

Sam gives him an 'If you won't mind your sugar intake I will' shrug and takes another bite of his sandwich, not quite able to hide the smug smile at the corner of his mouth.

"Bitch," Dean mutters, throwing a fry at his pain-in-the-ass little brother's head.

"Jerk," Sam tosses back, snagging the fry and grinning as he chomps into it, taking a drink of Dean's soda to wash it down.

"You little—" Dean starts, only to be cut off.

"Boys, keep it down! I'm tryin' to work here!" John barks, pacing to the icebox to snatch up a beer. Sam and Dean freeze on instinct, years of reflex kicking in in an instant.

The rest of lunch is uncomfortable. The silence only broken by the rustling of paper and the near-silent popping of carbonation.

When John is finished laying out his research, he gestures Sam and Dean over to the wall he's papered in notes, maps, graphs, pictures, and newspaper clippings.

"This is everything I've got on the demon," John gravels. "When it's appeared, where, how, everything. As best I can tell, whenever he pops up there are omens. Cyclones, cattle deaths, crop failures, freak weather patterns. The omens aren't concrete, but everywhere this thing has been, they are, too."

"Lawrence?" Sam asks, his voice quiet, intense, and their dad nods.

"And Palo Alto," John adds gruffly. "Sam, I never got a chance before- I'm sorry about your girlfriend."

Dean remembers Jessica, all warm smiles and chocolate chip cookies and curly blonde hair, sweet and fresh and perfect for Sammy. Soft and welcoming and easing the silent, invisible weight off Sam's shoulders, just for a little.

She didn't deserve to die. Didn't deserve to become just another casualty in their family's war.

He can't help but draw closer to Sammy, get a hand on his back, and he relaxes as he feels a little of the tension bleed from Sam in return as his brother leans into the contact.

"Yeah," Sam mumbles, his head ducking, and then, stronger. "Yeah. So, omens?"

"Omens," John nods, moving to a map in the center of the wall, with red x's spattered over it. "Now for years there was nothing, and then, about eight months ago, they started popping up everywhere. It's the demon. It's active again."

"What's it want?" Dean demands, eyes skimming over the research, trying to make sense of it, to draw answers out of the chaos, but it's no use. It's not like the journal, facts and figures and lore in a jumble, but one that could be picked through, deciphered.

This... this is printouts and newspaper articles and pages ripped from books and maps, all with words or pictures circled, scribbled over, with random x's, the occasional two or three word note, but no real clue as to their meaning, their significance.

And here and there it's peppered with drawings, sheets of hotel stationary with John's handwriting, and envelopes with names or addresses scrawled on the back.

It's all fragmented and cryptic and Dean'd bet his favorite gun that only Dad knows what it all means... but he'd throw Sammy's in the mix if his little brother can't figure out the broad strokes in an afternoon.

"I haven't figured out its endgame yet," his dad grumbles, "and every time I've closed it on it, it's slipped away from me. What we're looking at here is big, boys. It's not just the one demon. He's got soldiers, lieutenants. I was closing in on its second-in-command in Chicago when I got your call."

"So you losing it was our fault," Dean mutters, ignoring his little brother's scoff beside him.

"Dean, it was a trap from the beginning," Sam dismisses. "We all fell for it, even Dad."

John shoots Sam something perilously close to a glare but nods, starting again: "What's important here is that we find the demon and kill it."

"Kill it?" Sam asks, eyebrows raised. "I thought that was impossible. That you could only exorcise demons."

"Well, I'm working on that. There's legend of a gun," John begins. "Made by—"

"Do you have it?" Sam demands, cutting Dad off.

"What?" John sputters, taken off guard by Sammy's interruption.

"Do you have this magic gun?" Sam repeats slowly and clearly, like he was talking to someone either slightly deaf or deeply stupid.

Dean has an idea of which one Sammy's thinking of here, and that attitude isn't exactly gonna make any of this go smooth for any of them.

"No," John grits out tightly, glaring at Dean's brother.

"So, what?" Sammy demands. "You've been hunting this thing to kill it without actually having a way to kill it? What happens if you find the thing, Dad? What the fuck use is this magic gun you _don't have_ if you're hunting the demon _now_?!"

"Sammy," Dean warns, and John's glare shoots to him like this whole damn outburst is his fault which, what the actual fuck?

"No, Dean," Sam says, shaking his head, "I wanna know what Dad's plan here was. You gonna ask it for a 'Time Out' to go scratch up something that can do the job, Dad? Gonna hope that it's nice and sportsmanlike, instead of DISAPPEARING FOR ANOTHER TWENTY-TWO YEARS? _Goddammit_, am I the only one in this family with _critical thinking skills_?"

"Hey!" Dean pipes up. Sure, maybe he's not Stanford material, but his critical thinking skills are just fine, thank you.

"Sorry, Dean," Sam apologizes shortly, not looking away from his glaring match with John.

"Sammy," John grits out, only for Sam to cut him off again.

"You know what?" Sam spits out. "Old plan's out. New plan: We research the gun, _find it_, and _then_ go hunting demons."

He looks between Dean and John. Their dad's stare is boring a hole through Sam, a million shades of anger flaring across his face, and for a second Dean thinks he's gonna have to get between them again, but Sam breaks the silence.

"That cool with everyone?" he demands hotly, snatching up a stack of demonology texts and throwing himself into a chair. "Great. Let's get started."

John's mouth curls, and Dean moves to intercept the punch his dad telegraphs, to get between his baby brother and their father, but John just snatches up the keys to the truck from their resting place on the table, turning on his heel and storming out of the cabin without a word.

A heartbeat later, Dean hears the truck revving, the crunch of tires on the gravel drive.

"Good riddance," Sam grumbles, flipping a page angrily from his seat at the table.

Well, Dean thinks, that went _awesome_.


	8. Chapter 8

Hours pass. Night falls. Dinner comes and goes, and John has yet to reappear.

Sam doesn't care.

Really, he doesn't. He's gotten some good research done in the intervening time, and no one's ragged on him for abandoning his family or shot Dean down for not living up to John's impossible standards, so really, Sam's good.

Dean on the other hand...

Sam's not stupid. He's not dense, and he's not oblivious. He sees the glances his brother keeps shooting to the door, the uncomfortable edge their silence has held ever since Sam tore John a new one for possessing absolutely zero planning skills.

He doesn't care. John is an ass, and Dean can just get over it. And stop pretending to reading the Orlov text. If Sam keeps going at the pace he's going, he's gonna need it before Dean gets to the title page.

"Any luck on the gun?" Dean asks, looking up to see Sam scrutinizing him.

"Nada," Sam shrugs, flipping _A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels and other Subversive Spirits_ closed and snatching up Dad's battered copy of _Summa Theologica_ with a sigh. "I'm starting to think it _is_ a myth."

"We got a plan B?" Dean asks, letting his book fall shut and picking up a new one before cocking an eyebrow at Sam.

"This book mentions a 'Kurdish demon-killing knife,'" Sam reads skeptically, doubtful look on his face as he reads what exactly that means.

"That sounds good," Dean nods, gesturing for Sam to go on. "Where do we get one a' those? Kurdia?"

"It's Kurdistan, Dean," Sam says, giving Dean a glare before turning back to the book, "and I'm afraid it's not gonna be that easy."

"How bad we talkin'?" Dean asks, leaning forward with his elbow planted right in the middle of an eighteenth century religious pamphlet that they can't exactly walk into the nearest Barnes and Noble to replace.

Then again, considering Dad's likely used it as a coaster at some point, it's probably not the worst abuse the thing's seen.

"This book says they're made to order," Sam reads in a matter-of-fact voice, "in a holy grove, on the equinox of a day and year divisible by the number eleven, by anointing a blade forged in dragon fire with the blood of a thousand infants poured from the skull of a Knight of Hell."

He's not entirely proud of the ironic tone that creeps into his voice, but it serves its purpose as he drops his book on the table and watches as Dean widens his eyes and makes a face.

"…Yeah, well, this book says that's dumb, and we're not doing that," he smarms, poking a finger in his recently abandoned elbow rest.

"_Dean_," Sam says, in his best I-Might-Be-Younger-But-One-Of-Us-Has-To-Be-The-Mature-One-Here voice. It sounds a lot like his Dean-You're-An-Idiot tone.

"It totally does, dude," Dean shrugs, holding his hands up and half-trying to suppress a grin.

"Really?" Sam asks sarcastically, then makes a grab for the pamphlet. "Let me see."

"It says I'm not allowed to show you," Dean tosses back quickly, snatching the thin book out of Sam's reach with an older brother's practice and efficiency.

"No, it does not!" Sam protests, getting up from his chair to grab at the pages.

"Yep, says it right here," Dean nods, grinning, pointing to a random page as he rises from his chair and eludes his little brother, "'…and never, ever show to Sam'."

"Gimme the book, Dean," Sam whines, hating how much he sounds like a chubby twelve year old stymied by his infuriatingly tall brother holding his English assignment out of reach. "I need it for research!"

"Come and get it, Sammy," Dean taunts, taking a step back and holding the book high.

Well, Dean may still be older, but he stopped being the taller one a long time ago, Sam thinks, darting after his brother to make a grab for the book. Of course, he remembers as he grabs and gets nothing but air, Dean's a quick bastard when he wants to be, despite all the double bacon cheeseburgers he wolfs down.

"I'm serious," Sam complains, as Dean ducks another one of his grabs. "We've got research to do."

"What's wrong, little brother, can't—" he laughs, only to be cut off by Sam's tackle, both of them landing in a tangle of plaid and flailing limbs on one of the cots, the rusty springs protesting.

"Ha! Gotcha!" Sam shouts triumphantly.

He snatches the text from Dean's hand as he shimmies to straddle his brother's solar plexus.

"You're getting slower in your old age, Dean," he teases, leaning down and flicking the crumpled pamphlet at Dean's nose until his brother smacks him away, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbles, shoving at Sam's stomach. "Move your ass, Sasquatch. I'm running out of air here."

"Sorry, dude," Sam says, sitting back and opening the book in his hands, still perched on top of Dean. "Gotta do research. Very important hunter reading. You understand."

"I understand I'm gonna kick your ass, you don't move your stupid giant butt off me!" his big brother grumbles, doing his best to throw Sam off.

"Wait, Dean, what's that?" Sam asks, absently deflecting his brother's blows as he cocks his head, listening to the faint, persistent buzzing.

"The sound of my fist about to meet your face!" Dean grunts, but Sam just rolls his eyes and looks around them, spotting what he's looking for on the floor next to the cot.

Of course, the second he leans to scoop the buzzing cell phone from the floor and flip it open, Dean takes advantage of his distraction, shoving Sam in the ribs and sending him tumbling to the floor.

"Dean's phone," Sam wheezes into the receiver once he more or less rights himself, aiming a halfhearted smack at his brother on the bed as he tries not to choke on the assorted dust and disgusting detritus sent spiraling into the air by his fall.

"What the hell is goin' on over there?" Bobby asks, voice faint under the sounds of Sam's coughing and Dean's demands that Sam give his phone back.

"Sorry, Bobby," Sam coughs, planting a hand in Dean's face, the tips of his fingers catching in the gelled spikes of Dean's hair, and lightly shoving him back onto the bed as Sam stands up.

"Dude, speaker," Dean says, jerking his head at the phone as he elbows up on the bed. "He could probably help."

Sam clicks the button and shoves Dean's legs to the side so he can sit.

"What the hell have you two chuckleheads got yourselves into now?" Bobby demands, and Dean snags Sam's wrist, drags the phone closer to himself.

"We need a way to kill a demon, Bobby," he starts. "The one that killed our mom."

"Your daddy got anything to do with this?" the older hunter grumbles evenly, but Sam can hear books rustling in the background. Even if it means working with John again, Bobby is apparently on the case.

"He _did_," Dean nods, shooting Sam a _look_, "but he stormed out around lunchtime. Haven't heard from him since."

'What?' Sam mouths, holding his hands up, but Dean just rolls his eyes, goes back to the phone.

"He mentioned a gun, Bobby. Some sort of legendary, demon-killing gun," he recounts. "You got any lore on that?"

"On a magic demon gun?" Bobby asks skeptically. "Well, crazy as it sounds, I've heard a thing or two. Ya'll aren't actually goin' after it, are ya?"

"It beats going after the demon with no way to take it out, which _was_ the plan," Sam snaps.

"Of all the dumbass—" Bobby begins, only to stop himself. "Wait, wait. Lemme guess: John's idea?"

"Bingo," Sam bites out. "So, what have you got on the gun for us, Bobby?"

"Long time ago," the older hunter starts as Sam and Dean both lean close to the phone, "your daddy was learning all he could about huntin' from a man by the name of Elkins."

Sam's brow quirks, trying to remember where he's heard that name before.

Elkins… Elkins…

"Elkins as in _vampire hunting_ Elkins?" Sam demands, suddenly remembering the name from Louisiana, from a basement with his brother in a cage and a bloodsucking psychopath dangling his brother's suffering in front of Sam like meat on a hook.

"That's the one," Bobby confirms. "Been in the game since I was poppin' zits and sweatin' over askin' Susie Martin to the Spring Dance. Taught your daddy everything he knows, up to and includin' the story of the gun."

"Yeah, what's the story behind this thing, anyway?" Dean breaks in. "It shoot tanks made of napalm or somethin'?"

"It's a revolver," Bobby begins, "made over a hundred and fifty years ago by Samuel Colt himself. I don't know how, but that gun can kill anything. Lore says that Colt made thirteen bullets for the gun, gave it to a hunter who didn't use more than a couple before he dropped off the map and the gun with him."

Bobby pauses, considering, then says, "If you boys are lookin' to kill a demon, I reckon that gun's gonna be your best bet. And if anyone's got an idea where it might be, it's gonna be Elkins."

"Great," Dean nods. "You shoot us Elkins' number, we'll dial him up, get everything we need to know on the gun."

"It's not quite that easy, Dean," Bobby rumbles, and Sam can hear books thumping in the background, the rustle of pages and papers as the older hunter digs for something. "Elkins was a paranoid bastard, even by hunter standards. He's worse at pickin' up a phone than your daddy, and ain't nobody knows where he's holed up since he retired."

"He retired?" Sam asks, surprised. He can't think of a hunter that retired… _ever_. It's just not done, at least not in his experience.

"He was a vampire hunter who ran outta vampires," Bobby answers, and Sam can hear the shrug in his voice. "Got convinced they were biding their time, waiting for the right time to strike and went underground."

"Went underground where?" Dean chimes in.

"No clue. I'd say ask your daddy, but from what I hear, he and John had a fallin' out ages ago, way before Elkins went off the grid."

"So, we're screwed then," Dean finishes, mouth twisting, and Sam is inclined to agree. He knows better than anyone that it's not easy finding a hunter that doesn't want to be found.

"Maybe not," Bobby counters, speculation in his voice. "I know another hunter, trained under Elkins. Kept in touch, name of Bill Harvelle. Friend of your daddy's, actually."

"Can we talk to him?" Sam asks. "Maybe he knows about this gun."

If he's sociable enough to keep in touch with someone as paranoid as Elkins, maybe this guy would actually answer a phone, saving Sam and Dean hours or maybe even days of driving and tracking him down.

"At the very least, he could help us get in touch with Elkins," Sam reasons aloud, his mind already racing with the possibilities, the calculations, the timelines for if they get an address versus if they get a lead on the actual gun, until Bobby pipes up and breaks Sam's train of thought.

"That'd be quite the accomplishment, considering he's dead," Bobby tosses out in a sarcastic monotone. "Got taken out on a hunt, 'bout 10 years back. Wife's still around, though, might be you ask nicely, she'll give you a peek at his journal. She runs a hunter's bar up in Nebraska."

"A hunter's _bar_?" Dean repeats skeptically, and Sam's gotta agree with him on this one.

"Exactly what it sounds like, kid," Bobby confirms, but even Sam can hear the smile in his voice.

"Great. What's next, a bowling league?" Dean quips, passing the phone to Sam and mouthing 'Hunter's bar?' to himself over and over again.

"So, Bobby," Sam continues, stifling a laugh at Dean's antics, "is there a number or..."

"This is one call you're gonna have to make in person, Sam," the older hunter shoots back. "Take it from someone who knows, Ellen Harvelle is a hell of a woman and not one to take Bill's death lightly."

Sam jots down an address off a county road in Nebraska, and as he and Dean are saying their goodbyes to Bobby, promising to look out for each other (a given) and to call more often (something they should do, really. Bobby's been good to them.) Sam's mind is already at the roadmap in the dash, calculating how long it'll take them to get from here to Ellen Harvelle's if they leave tonight.

Dean, for his part, is quiet, following him like a shadow out to the Impala and standing at the open passenger door as Sam pulls the map out of the glove compartment, spreads it across his lap, and does the math in his head in a blur, squinting in the dim light of the moon overhead.

"We leave tonight, we could make it to Ellen Harvelle's by morning," he says excitedly to Dean, folding the map and stuffing it back into the glove compartment.

"So you wanna split, head off to Nebraska after this guy Harvelle's broad?" Dean asks, and the tone in his voice has Sam looking up, searching his brother's face in the dark. "What if Dad doesn't go for it?"

"Fuck him then," Sam answers with an easy shrug.

"Sammy," Dean warns, and why does Sam need a warning? It's been nothing but fighting and bitching and bad ideas since they got together. And why do they need him for this anyway? Why? Why do they need his company or his permission or his- his _anything?_

They're fine on their own. Just fine.

"What?" Sam demands, shooting up from the passenger seat, latching on to this. "We've got his notes, research, everything. Aside from the fact that he's our father, what's keeping us here, Dean? What?"

"You don't think he's gonna, um, _notice his research is missing_?" Dean asks sarcastically, and Sam can't help but snort in derision.

"What?" Dean demands, back up and mouth tight, and Sam can't believe he's getting pissed about this. He doesn't even know what Sam _did_ yet.

"You guys really need to join us in the 21st century," Sam shakes his head, digging his cellphone from his pocket and holding it up with an impatient shake, tapping the camera imbedded in the back with one irritated finger.

"Seriously, Sam?" Dean spits out, incredulous. "When? And _why_? Are you _that_ paranoid he's gonna rabbit on us?"

"While you were getting dinner," Sam grumbles, "and yes, I am. It's not like he's got a spotless track record when it comes to that shit. He's not even here now!"

Sam is not feeling guilty about this. He's _not_. It makes sense, especially considering how often John's bailed on them in the past. He had the opportunity, and he did it. As insurance. And reference.

"For the last time, Sam, he'll be back!" Dean throws his hands in the air. "He'll be back, and we'll go after this thing together."

"It's not a 'thing,' it's research, Dean," Sam counters. "Something I've been doing on my own since I was nine! Dad'll be fine. He's got his wall of crazy to look over and a bottle of Jack to babysit. He doesn't need us, and we don't need him."

"Well, you don't need me," Dean retorts. "You gonna ditch me here, too?"

"Dean, that's not what I meant," Sam deflates, reaching out to his brother on instinct because this isn't— He wouldn't— He would never, _ever_— "You know that's not what I meant."

Dean rolls his eyes, glaring into the distance over the top of the Impala, but he lets Sam catch hold of his sleeve anyway. Pushes out a harsh, heavy breath, but doesn't push him away.

"I'm not talking about forever, here," Sam offers, quiet but insistent, because this—

God, how does this keep getting away from him? How did this go from "Let's follow a lead," to some big fucked up family abandonment drama? How does everything keep spiraling into this big, dramatic other _thing_? This is supposed to be looking for the goddamn gun, not Dean and Dad and King Solomon's goddamn baby!

"It's just following a lead, Dean," Sam tries again, pushing out a harsh breath. "Dad said himself we were just hunkering down here waiting for something to happen. Is there going to be any _better_ time?"

Dean's looking at Sam now, eyes green and impenetrable.

"Come on, man," Sam presses. "I don't want to…"

He cuts himself off with a frustrated huff.

He doesn't know quite how he was going to finish that sentence. How he was going to find words that weren't too whiny or needy or crazy to get across the sharp, sudden pull in the pit of his stomach at the thought of going without Dean. Dean going without _him_. Not having that continuous, constant comfort of bad jokes and battered leather, onion breath and oldies and having his whole world right there in the driver's seat, singing along off-key and shooting him that come-on-Sammy grin that always managed to set things right, no matter how off kilter they'd gotten.

And horribly, awfully, unthinkably, before Sam can find the words or make sense of the sharp, sudden panic that sweeps through him, Dean tugs free.

"I'll call and ask Dad," he grumbles.

Sam watches his brother trudge back to the cabin, hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders slumped and tells himself that he doesn't feel guilty. That winning doesn't feel like losing, like cutting into Dean and rubbing salt in the wound.

_He's_ right. _This_ is right.

Even if making his brother do it feels wrong.

* * *

><p>Dean snatches up his phone from the dirty mattress, scrolling through until he's got Dad's name highlighted. He frowns, thumb hovering over the call button.<p>

Sam probably thinks Dean doesn't get why he's trying to pull a midnight escape instead of waiting an extra few hours for Dad to get back, but really? Dean gets it.

Wishes like hell he didn't, but yeah. He gets it.

'Cause best case scenario? Dad comes home drunk, and they spend tomorrow driving to Nebraska with him and his hangover riding shotgun. And then Sam and Dad will end up needling each other even more than usual, and Dean'll probably have to stop the car and make Sam run laps along the shoulder of the road to blow off steam while Dad gets friendly with Jim Beam and makes smart remarks about Sam's hair trigger temper from the passenger seat, and doesn't _that_ sound like a fun family road trip?

Worst case, Dad just throws the whole idea right out, tells Sam the lead he's so excited about is horse shit, and Dean has to watch Sam's face crumple up with disappointment and shame, and dammit, Dean would rather chase down a hundred bad leads than watch that.

And it's more than just Sam needing a break from the tension between him and Dad. Dean knows that look his brother gets when he's got something to prove. Maybe even Sam doesn't know whether he wants to show Dad up or earn his respect or get his approval – Dean's been down that road enough times to know how it all gets tangled up together – but Sam's pushing for it all the same.

Sam would probably rather be ripped apart by werewolves than admit to wanting _anything_ from their dad, but Dean knows that look of masked pain Sam gets in his eyes when he talks about the night Dad told him not to come home again and he knows now that Sam thinks Dad's always been disappointed in him. Which is just fucking nuts, because Sam can ID any ugly son of a bitch the hunt throws at them, can decode a dozen dead languages and get a knife in a monster's eye from twenty feet away, balances out all that brutality with a gentleness that puts even the most defensive witnesses at ease, and would crawl over broken goddamn glass to save Dean's sorry ass any day of the week. Who in their right mind could ever be disappointed in _Sam_?

But Sam's sure it's true, and with the way he and Dad are always going for the jugular, Dean guesses he can't blame the kid for thinking it, even if he's incredibly, stupidly wrong. Won't listen to Dean when he says that, though. Won't hear anything good about Dad since what happened in Louisiana, and well... Maybe he can't blame Sam for that, either.

Dean frowns deeper, presses _Call_, and holds the phone up to his ear.

Right to voicemail.

Dean's not going to even pretend to be surprised. He hangs up, shoves the phone into his pocket, and presses a palm to his face.

He thinks about having to bring Sam inside, about sitting on one of the sagging, syphilitic beds and waiting to see when Dad will come home, how drunk he'll be, how angry. Thinks about the arguments and the suspicious, accusing glances, the way Dean still can't make himself look Dad in the face. In the back of his mind, there's an unwelcome memory of Sam, brainwashed and bleeding, saying: _"You__'__re like a kicked dog."_

Dean snatches up a pen from Dad's research pile, digs a crumpled gas receipt from his pocket, and quickly scribbles out a message:

_Lead on the gun. Going to Ellen Harvelle__'__s. Be back ASAP. _

He tosses it on to the table, shoves his .45 into the back of his jeans, and strides out of the cabin before he can change his mind.

Sam's waiting exactly where Dean left him, eyebrows raised in question. Dean gets into the car without a word and shoves the key into the ignition.

"Dad said it was okay?" Sam asks incredulously, folding himself into the car and slamming the passenger's door shut.

"Left him a note," Dean says, glaring at the meter.

"_Really_?"

He doesn't look at Sam, but he can hear the surprised pleasure in his voice.

Dean grunts in affirmation. He takes them out of park, reversing carefully down the incline and trying to ignore the sound of gravel fucking up his baby's undercarriage.

_I__'__m gonna to regret this_, he thinks, even as he turns her off onto the highway.

"It's going to be fine, Dean," Sam says, sensing his thoughts. "You're probably right. I'm sure Dad's not going to take off just because we took our eyes off of him for a day or so."

Dean snorts, finally glancing over at his brother.

"Yeah, say that again and try to sound like you mean it."

Sam at least has the grace to look shamefaced.

"Well, I'm still glad you decided to come," Sam says quietly, after a moment, and Dean knows what he really means is, _"I__'__m glad you__'__re choosing me."_

"Best lead we got," Dean says, eyes straining against the glare of the setting sun. "Like you said."

This isn't him picking sides, no matter what Sam thinks. All three Winchesters are batting for the same team here, and the sooner Sam and Dad remember that the better. It's just that, right now, Dean's backing Sam's play. Simple as that.

He reaches under his seat and digs around in his box of tapes, picking one out at random. He thumbs it into the cassette player, just lets it pick up wherever they left off last time, the drawling voice of the narrator upped to a half-assed falsetto as he does the dialogue between Catherine and Henry.

"'—_love you so and it__'__s been awful. You won__'__t go away?__'"_

"'_No. I__'__ll always come back.__'"_

Dean glances at Sam out of the corner of his eye - watches him flip through the pictures on his phone, eyes squinted against the dim glow, the tiniest hint of a smile playing on his lips - and shifts into fifth gear.

"_I thought she was probably a little crazy,_" the narrator drones on._ "It was all right if she was. I did not care what I was getting into."_

* * *

><p>Author's Note: The referenced texts at the beginning of the chapter are "Dark Mirrors: Azazel and Satanael in Early Jewish Demonology" by Andrei A. Orlov, "A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels and Other Subversive Spirits" by Carol K. Mack &amp; Dinah Mack, and "Summa Theologica" by St. Thomas Aquinas. The book-on-tape Sam and Dean are listening to at the end is "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway.<p> 


	9. Chapter 9

Thanks for reading, everyone! Enjoy the chapter.

* * *

><p>Dean's driving outpaces Sam's predictions. By the time they're closing in on Ellen Harvelle's place, the sun is only just starting to peek over the horizon, turning the sky to pink and orange and casting long, dark shadows over the scrubby plains and scattered farm houses.<p>

Dean turns off I-80 at the outskirts of Omaha, ignoring the sleepy grumbles from the passenger's seat in favor of pulling his baby into the ghost-town parking lot of an IHOP.

He puts in their order with the tired-eye redhead working the booths while Sam goes to the bathroom, and when his brother slides back into the booth across from Dean, his face is still shadowed with frustration, all grim and grumpy from two sleepless nights in a row. Dean snorts at his expression and pushes Sam's cup of joe closer as a peace offering.

"The woman runs a bar, Sam," he says easily. "You think she's gonna take to getting dragged out of bed this early? Hell, Bobby already said she's cranky."

"S'not what he said," Sam half-yawns, stirring Sweet'N Low into his coffee.

Dean takes a long swig of his own coffee, lets the feel of it sizzling off the layer of skin on the roof of his mouth get his brain kick-started.

"Okay, if Bobby describes anyone as 'a hell of a woman,' I'm betting she's basically him in a wig. You wanna wake chick-Bobby up at the crack of dawn, be my guest, but I get your sweet phone and comfy hoodie after she shoots you."

Sam rolls his eyes so hard Dean thinks he hears something rattling around in there.

"Admit it, Dean. You just wanted pancakes."

"Hell yeah, I wanted pancakes," Dean tells him cheerfully. "Just because you hate food doesn't mean the rest of us have to."

Sam scoffs.

"This stuff isn't food. It's a coronary bypass on a plate."

Their waitress comes back with their orders before Dean can fully educate his brother about the wonders of a restaurant devoted entirely to sugary, trans-fat loaded breakfast foods. She deposits Dean's giant combo platter of bacon, eggs, sausage links, and French toast next to his stack of chocolate chip pancakes before adding Sam's tiny Kids Meal plate like an afterthought.

Sam scowls down at the smiley face pancake and then back at Dean, who just grins at him, mouth already stuffed full of sausage.

"Real mature, Dean."

"Come on, Sam," Dean needles. "You love it. Just look how happy it is to see you!"

Sam huffs and starts eating off the banana slices that make up the pancake's smile in retaliation. Dean watches him fondly.

"So," Sam says oh-so-casually, once he's started in on the blueberry eyes. "Heard anything from Dad?"

Dean spears a strip of bacon.

"Nope."

Sam furrows his brow, gently tipping syrup over his pancake in the shape of a triangle. Guess he doesn't know what to think of that either.

"You decoded all that research yet?" Dean asks, changing the subject.

Sam grimaces.

"Not yet," he says. "Not all of it. It reads like eight kinds of crazy and it's all jumbled up and half of it's in code…"

He sighs. Dean shrugs, unconcerned.

"You'll figure it out."

Sam is still frowning down at his pancake, fork poised in the air, so Dean dumps a fried egg onto his plate and kicks him in the shin.

"Eat," he orders. "If this lady is anything like I'm picturing, you're gonna need the energy."

Harvelle's Roadhouse is a dirty, tin-roofed dive located just off a stretch of interstate that's biggest selling point is that if you keep on driving you'll eventually hit Lincoln. The unpaved parking lot is completely empty, save for an ancient payphone, a self-serve gas pump, and a thin layer of detritus made up mainly of cigarette butts and empty beer bottles. There's a jumble of mismatched chairs, barrels, and wooden crates spilling out onto the dusty front porch. Dean imagines the place gets pretty packed come nighttime, but right now it's as still and quiet as the overgrown lots that surround it on all sides.

"Aw yeah," Dean says, throwing the Impala into park. "Now _this_place looks like a good time."

Sam snorts.

"Redneck," he accuses playfully.

He steps out into the parking lot, kicking an empty gas can out of his path, and they walk together toward the door. It's locked up tight, so Sam knocks a couple of times. They both wait, listening for any sounds of movement, but there's no answer.

Dean tries to see inside, but the windows are all blocked by rusted grating and dingy lace drapes. He shoulders his brother out of the way and gives 'er another try, pounding on the door with the side of his fist and hollering a little for good measure.

"Hello? Anybody home?"

Still no response.

"I'm gonna try the back," Dean says. "You keep knockin'."

Sam nods.

"Okay. Be careful."

Dean makes a face at him before he rounds the corner. He walks past the old RV that's parked up against the side of the building, its roof half-covered by a battered blue tarp and haphazardly stacked tires. There's an old blue and white Ford pickup parked in the back, and Dean notices that the ground back here is littered not just with trash and cigarette butts but with spent shells, too. He casts his eyes around and spots a couple of weathered shooting targets at the tail end of the lot, a few yards away from a battered wooden shed.

Dean raps on the peeling back door, waits a couple seconds, and when he doesn't get a response, jiggles the handle. He glances around at the empty yard before digging his lock pick kit out of his jacket and crouching down to jimmy the door open. He's almost got a lock on it when he feels something solid press against his back. He freezes.

"Stand up," a young, female voice barks from behind him. "Hands on your head."

Dean grins ruefully.

"Listen, miss, I know how this looks—"

He hears the sound of the shotgun cocking.

"I said get up."

"All right, all right," he says, standing slowly. "But just so you know, you really shouldn't put a gun right up against someone's back like that, 'cause it's real easy to—"

He turns quickly, yanking the firearm out of her hands.

"To do that," he finishes, smirking as he pumps the gun again, ejecting the round.

He barely gets the comment out before she punches him in the face with all of her might, yanking the shotgun out of his hands.

"Ow, god_dammit_!" Dean gasps, blood pouring down his face from where the blow has broken his sutures. "Sam! Could use some help here!"

The back door swings open, and an older woman blinks down at him. Sam pokes his head out over her shoulder, eyes going wide when he sees Dean bent over, clutching at his face.

"Shit," he swears, darting over to Dean's side and pressing his shirt sleeve against the wound. He glowers at the blonde girl, who looks surprised but unapologetic.

"You must be Dean," the woman says, grinning. "Hi, I'm Ellen. See you already met my daughter. Jo, these are John Winchester's boys."

The girl – Jo – nods in greeting.

"Hey," she says.

Dean squints up at her in disbelief.

"_Hey_," he says with a big, sarcastic grin.

Sam puffs out an annoyed breath.

"Ellen, do you have any dental floss I can borrow?"

* * *

><p>Ellen, as it turns out, has hospital quality suturing on standby and graciously lets Dean pound back a free shot of whisky while Sam stitches him up at the bar.<p>

She's polishing glasses now, eyeing Sam's stitch work like she's ready to smack his hands away and do it herself if he so much as twitches. She'd tossed Jo a washcloth and told her to get to work cleaning the tables. Dean's been keeping tabs on her out of the corner of his eye, and as far as he can tell, she's been polishing the same spot on the table closest to the bar for the last ten minutes. The third or fourth time he glances over, she catches him looking and cocks her head to the side, blonde hair swinging, then gives him a wide, smarmy smile.

Honestly, Dean would probably enjoy that level of callousness if it wasn't his face that got punched.

"Jesus, Dean, what were you thinking?" Sam chides him, snipping off the last stitch and carefully mopping up the blood that's spattered down his face. "I told you to be careful."

Dean sputters indignantly.

"Wow, Sam, way to blame the victim," he says. "Have some pity, man."

Sam scoffs. He'd been subtle enough about it, but Dean could tell he was righteously pissed at Jo up until Dean explained that he'd been doing a pretty good impression of some jackass trying to pull a B&E on a hunter's bar. Now, of course, Sam's just channeling his concern into being a little bitch while he pokes at Dean's face.

"Alright," Ellen breaks in, setting aside the glass she's been working on and leaning her elbows against the bar. "Well, now that's all cleared up. I'm assumin' you're here 'cause you need my help. Your daddy closin' in on that demon?"

They both start, glancing at each other in surprise.

"You know about the demon?" Dean demands.

Ellen's eyebrows draw together as she looks between them.

"Well, that's why John sent you, isn't it?"

Jo turns slightly, looking at them curiously from behind the curtain of her hair.

"He didn't… send us, exactly," Sam says awkwardly.

Ellen straightens up.

"Is he's alright?" she asks, like she's afraid to hear the answer.

Dean clears his throat.

"He's fine," he says. "We came on our own, is all. Heard about you from Bobby Singer."

"That so?" Ellen says crossly. "Well, of course. Figured John'd finally decided to stop being a stubborn ass, but looks like that was just wishful thinkin'."

"You're the one who called me the other day, right?" Dean asks. "Trying to get in touch with him?"

"That's right," she says. "Figured you wouldn't remember me from way back when, but... Well, you know how bad the man is about picking up his phone."

"Yeah," Sam exhales with a grimace. "We do."

"Must've left him a half-dozen messages since he dropped off the grid offering to give him a hand. After he called me the other day, I thought maybe he was coming around," she shakes her head, mouth working. "Well then, if this isn't about the demon, what is it about?"

"Actually," Dean says. "It sort of is about that, um…"

He coughs and casts Sam a 'help me out here' look. Sam sighs, puts on his most sympathetic puppy dog face and starts explaining about the gun.

"I know Daniel Elkins," Ellen confirms once they've reached that part of the story. "Haven't seen him in years, though. Not since before Bill—"

She cuts herself off, picking up another glass to scrub.

"Anyway, I don't know where he got to."

"Well, that's just it," Sam says gently. "Bobby thinks maybe your husband might have. Maybe he wrote it down somewhere?"

"So you wanna look through his things," Ellen finishes, face unreadable.

"No way," Jo breaks it, standing up ramrod straight, pretty face like a storm cloud. "Not a chance."

"Listen, I get how you feel," Dean tells her, turning on his barstool. And he does. He really, really does. If a pair of hunters showed up wanting to look through Mom's stuff, he'd be throwing punches before they even got the words out. "But we've got to get our hands on this gun. This is important. It's—"

"You don't even know the address is in there," Jo points out. "Even if it is, it's been _years_. That Elkins guy could've moved a dozen times since then."

"It'd still be better than what we got," Dean tosses back. "This is—"

Ellen slaps a hand down the counter with a _clink_. She pulls back, leaving a key on the table by Dean's elbow.

"If Bill had anything on Elkins, it'd be in that old RV out there," she jerks her head toward the wall behind her. "You boys have a look around, see if you can find his journal."

"Mom," Jo says tightly.

"Joanna Beth, we are not having this conversation," Ellen cuts her off. "You let these boys do their job."

Jo frowns deeply, narrowed eyes trained on the floor.

Sam reaches out and takes the keys gently.

"Thank you. We really appreciate it."

Ellen clears her throat, her expression shuttered.

"Just… be careful in there. Nobody's been in that wreck in ten years."

She turns away and grabs a stack of dirty trays before walking into the kitchen, door swinging behind her with finality. Dean gets the message loud and clear: Dismissed.

He hops down off the chair and tilts his head towards the door, eyebrows raised. Sam nods.

"Hey, wait," Jo says, slapping her washcloth down on the table. "If you're going in there, I'm coming with you."

"You don't have to do that," Sam says.

Jo raises an eyebrow in an expression that screams _"Just you try to fucking stop me."_

"Lead on," Dean says, sweeping his hand out in invitation.

Jo twirls on her heel and strides briskly out of the Roadhouse. Dean follows after her, face threatening to split into a grin. He watches her round backside swing from side to side.

Man, he could really learn to like this girl.


	10. Chapter 10

Thanks again to all of our wonderful reviewers! We read and appreciate every bit of feedback! Hope you all enjoy this new chapter. And if you do, please drop us a note and let us know!

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><p>Bill Harvelle's RV is parked with the door leading into the living area pressed up against the wall. Jo sticks her hand out for the key, unlocks the driver's side door, and yanks it open with a rusty shriek. She throws a slim leg up, grabs hold of the steering wheel, and pulls herself inside. They watch her clamor over the driver's seat and into the back, and then Dean meets Sam's gaze with a little half smile, shrugs a shoulder, and plants a boot on the floorboard to follow her.<p>

Sam resists the urge to pull a face. He's not blind to the appreciative looks Dean's been tossing Jo's way. His brother never did know when to keep it in his pants. Honestly, Sam will consider himself lucky if Dean sticks to just looking. He doesn't exactly relish the idea of Ellen Harvelle chasing them off the property with a shotgun, especially when they haven't even gotten a lead on the Colt yet.

The RV creaks and rocks when Sam scoots over the center console to step heavily into the cabin. The inside is musty and dim, a time capsule done up in gray paisley and pine. The faint, pungent smell of mildew twinges in Sam's nose, the remnant of storms battering the RV over the past ten years from the looks of it. Shattered glass crunches underneath Sam's hunting boots, sprinkled liberally over the table and bench seats. The windows on the wall facing the outside are all taped up with plastic sheeting.

Sam's intimately aware of Jo's eyes boring holes into the side of his head from her spot against the opposite wall, so he tries to look as respectful as possible as he scavenges through her dad's stuff for anything useful.

He notices a map of Pasadena pinned up on the wall behind the table, along with a few news clippings about disappearances and wild dog attacks in the area. There's a jumble of papers littering the table, spilling down across the seats and scattering onto the dingy floral kitchen rugs that line the hallway. Sam sweeps as much glass away as he can with his sleeve and starts picking through them.

It's mostly more of the same: A couple of ten year old newspapers made almost unreadable by water damage, another map with Devil's Gate Reservoir circled in Sharpie, along with a handful of bills and a shopping list of hunting supplies that have all been crossed out. Sam shuffles the papers and puts them back on the table in neat stacks.

He pulls open the cabinets but doesn't find anything except dead bugs, a couple of rolls of toilet paper, a case of extremely expired PBR, and what looks like a lifetime supply of beef jerky.

Dean's still in the back going through the bedroom drawers, and another scan of the RV doesn't turn up anything large enough to hide a journal, except maybe the cabinets under the sink in the tiny kitchenette. Jo's wandered over there, now, her hands gripping her elbows, expression unreadable. Sam goes to stand beside her.

She's staring at a handful of old snapshots taped up to the wall. There's a wallet sized photo of Ellen standing outside a shined-up version of the Roadhouse, arms crossed over her chest, her scowl belied by the twinkle of her eyes and the slight quirk at the corner of her mouth. Next to it is a picture of Jo as a little girl in overalls and braids, holding up a fish on a hook next to the beaming face of the man Sam assumes must have been Bill Harvelle. Another photo depicts a slightly older Jo standing beside the road and smiling widely, thumbs tucked into the straps of her Lisa Frank backpack.

Jo reaches out and lightly touches the photo in the center, an old polaroid of a very young, very pregnant Ellen standing up on her tiptoes next to the RV to kiss her husband through the window.

"Mom always hated this thing," she says with a faint smile. "She must have tried a million times to get him to sell it once they moved into the Roadhouse. Pretty sure he just took it on hunts to prove her wrong when she said it was a waste of space."

She gives a sad little laugh, arm dropping back to her side.

"I'm sorry," Sam says softly. "I know it can't be easy having us remind you of all this."

"It's okay," Jo tells him, shrugging one shoulder. "It was a long time ago."

It's not okay, not really. Not at all, and Sam knows it. He knows what it sounds like to swallow down grief, knows what it looks like to when someone's trying to push it away, trying to force it down, and it just won't _go_.

"Do you mind if I ask what happened?"

Jo blows a long breath out of her nose.

"Hunt gone wrong," she says, voice taking on a twinge of bitterness. "That's about all I know for sure. Some other hunter brought back the RV for us and Mom just… left it where he parked it. Never touched it. Never wanted to talk about what happened. Didn't even want to talk about _Dad_."

She swallows thickly, fists forming at her sides.

"I think the thing that did it is dead," she says tightly, "but I don't _know_. And I don't know how he died or why. I'll probably _never_ know."

Sam nods slowly.

"I think I know how you feel."

"Do you?" Jo asks tersely.

Sam turns to look at her fully and nods again.

"The demon we're hunting killed my mom," he tells her. "I was just a baby. When I was growing up, my dad and my brother never wanted to talk about her either."

Jo stares at him with her eyebrows drawn together, fists unfurling. In the bedroom, Dean fumbling has gone quiet, and Sam shoves away the thought that he's listening in.

"That was their way of dealing with it. I get that now," he continues. "But I think not talking about it made it worse, because then it was like she was just _gone_. There was this big empty space in our lives where she used to be, but we couldn't acknowledge it. Couldn't deal with it. When I was a kid, I used to think all kinds of stuff, like maybe they didn't want me to talk about her because it was _my_ fault she wasn't around."

He has to shut his eyes against a sudden surge of emotion, takes a second before continuing.

"I thought not knowing was worse than _anything_," he says. "But I was wrong. The worst thing is knowing what happened to my mom, knowing that it's _still_ happening, and not being about to do a damn thing to stop it."

Jo is silent for a long moment.

"Wait here," she says, smacking a palm against the cracked linoleum.

She walks past him and climbs out of the RV. Sam watches her trudge across the yard towards the tool shed through the back window.

Dean turns from where he, too, is watching the window to look at Sam, brow furrowed.

"Bupkis in here," he gravels, holding up a pack of cigars he'd fished from under the mattress before tossing it onto the bedside table. "You find anything?"

"Maybe," Sam says distractedly.

Dean doesn't push him on it. Sam's brother is a smart guy. He's probably thought of the same possibility Sam has.

"Hey, Sam," Dean says instead, back turned as he pushes things back into the drawers at the base of the bed. "What you said just now? About Mom? I didn't—"

"I know, Dean," Sam cuts him off. "It's fine."

"I mean, it's just… I couldn't…" Dean trails off. Sam can hear the frown in this voice. "But I never wanted you to feel like it was your fault she wasn't around."

_But it was,_ Sam thinks. _We both know it was._

Before either of them has to say it, Jo is back, holding a book tightly to her chest. She sets it down on the counter in front of Sam, then steps back quickly like she's afraid she's going to change her mind. It's a thick leather journal with the initials W.A.H. carved into the cover.

"Don't tell my mom, but the truth is I broke in here years ago," she tells them. "Took this and a couple of other things. If you think you can use it… then use it."

"Are you sure?" Sam asks, hand hovering over the journal.

"Yeah," Jo exhales, "I'm sure. I mean, I'd give anything to take a shot at the thing that killed my dad, but I don't have that option. You guys do. And if Dad were… I know he would've wanted me to help you."

"Thank you," Sam says sincerely.

He tucks the book under his arm and can't help the smile that spreads itself across his face.

For the first time in a while, it seems like things are finally going their way again.

* * *

><p>Ellen's done cleaning the bar by the time they get back in. It doesn't really look any less dirty now than it did in the first place, but Dean's known enough hunters to figure it's sort of a 'pearls before swine' situation. She doesn't do much more than nod in acknowledgement when she sees the journal in Sam's hands before telling Jo that she's heading up to their apartment.<p>

"Well?" she prompts sharply, halfway through the kitchen door. "You two comin' or not?"

"Yes, ma'am," Dean responds automatically, falling into formation behind her.

The entrance to the apartment is tucked away behind a metal door in one corner of the kitchen. The door is padlocked shut from the outside and made of pure iron. When Ellen swings it shut again, Dean notices that the inside has been spray-painted with an impressive orgy of protective sigils.

No wonder Bobby likes this lady so much.

It's a short walk up a flight of wooden stairs to another door that sits at the top of the stairs, this one deceptively normal looking, painted white and inlaid with a set of curtained windows. Ellen unlocks it too, ushering them inside.

The Harvelle's home is small but neat and clean as a goddamn whistle. They step from the doorway into a living room that's decorated with burgundy carpet and tan-colored lattice wallpaper. Dean notes the lacey drapes on the windows and the square of white, lace-trimmed tablecloth laid sideways on the mahogany coffee table in the center of the room. Everything smells faintly like roses, and Dean narrows down the source to a bowl of pink potpourri sitting on top of the ancient television set. Ellen orders them to sit down on the white, claw-footed couch and disappears into the kitchen to grab them a couple of beers, and Dean and Sam share an incredulous look.

Apparently Ellen Harvelle has a Susie Homemaker side. Who'd have thought?

The first thing Dean notices once Sam cracks it open is that Bill Harvelle's journal is roughly a thousand times better organized than Dad's. It doesn't take long before they notice a faded, pencil smudged list of names and numbers stretching from the inside cover through the first three pages. They're indexed by state, and Dean's seriously concerned that Sam's going to piss himself with happiness. It's exactly how Sam would lay it out, and Dean knows that for sure because Sam's got a similar address book running in the back of their own hunting journal.

"Sorry, boys, Dan Elkins ditched that phone years ago," Ellen says, setting their beers down on the table before leaning over Sam's shoulder to get a look at the page he's pointing to. "Keep lookin' though. After a while, Bill just got tired of changing the numbers every damn month."

"Told you," Dean tells his brother under his breath.

Sam huffs and ignores him.

Dean lets Sam take the lead on digging around for Elkins' location. If anyone's going to be able to find a tiny detail like that mixed in with all of these accounts of chupacabras and werewolves, it'll be Sam. His brother devours the pages, a wrinkle of concentration between his brows, silence punctuated with those familiar, dorky little "huh" noises that mean he's found something particularly interesting. Dean cranes his neck to get a look at the pages over Sam's shoulder. Even he has to admit, Bill Harvelle's journal is a pretty good read, even if his drawings look like something Sammy would've done when he was five. And considering Sam's about as talented at art as he is at holding a tune or picking a radio station that doesn't make Dean want to hang himself, that's saying something.

But after forty-five minutes of searching, even Sam seems to be questioning whether they're going to find anything, and he's stopped reading the details in favor of flicking through the pages with ruthless efficiency, scanning each in turn for a mention of Elkins before moving swiftly on.

Dean sighs and cracks his jaw before standing up, waggling his empty beer bottle at Sam and Ellen as an explanation before he wanders into the kitchen.

Jo's in there now, rummaging through the fridge. Dean eyes her appreciatively, taking in the long line of her spine where her tank top's gotten rucked up to settle at the dip of her waist.

"Can I help you?" Jo asks flatly without sparing a look back.

"Yeah, grab me a beer, would you?"

There's a half-second pause and then Jo tugs open the vegetable drawer, standing up to toss Dean a bottle of Bud and elbow the fridge door closed. She twists the cap off a bottle of Coke and leans against the counter, taking a long swig regarding Dean with inscrutable eyes.

"So," she says. "How's your face?"

"Fine," Dean lies easily. "How's your fist?"

"Never better," Jo tells him, grinning blithely.

She's a firecracker, all right. Dean can't decide if he finds that annoying or sexy as hell. Probably a little of both, if he has to be honest. He pops the cap on his beer and takes a swig.

"Looks like Sam's gonna take a while," he says, nodding his head toward the living room. "You wanna grab some lunch? Maybe show me what you do for fun 'round this place?"

"Not a lot of what you'd call 'fun' around here," she says, expression equal parts amused and incredulous. "Assuming you're not talking about shooting cans out back."

"Well, we could always make our own fun," Dean suggest with a half-grin.

Jo huffs out a laugh like it's been punched out of her, eyebrows shooting all the way up to her hairline.

"_Please_ tell me nobody's ever fallen for that line."

"You'd be surprised," Dean replies, unstung by the rejection.

"Ever try it on someone you didn't put three shots of tequila in first?"

Dean gives her the non-verbal equivalent of _"Fair enough."_

"Lunch is still on offer, though," he tells her.

"Yeah, I'm gonna pass," Jo smirks, shaking her head. "Better luck next time, sailor."

"Can't blame a guy for trying," Dean says with an easy shrug.

It's probably for the best, anyway. Sure, there might be something there, but the timing's all wrong, for both of them. Anyway, the last thing he wants to do is give Ellen Harvelle a reason to pump his ass full of buckshot.

She'd do it, too. Doesn't matter how many lace doilies the woman owns, she'd take him apart in a second.

"Hey, Dean!" Sam calls, interrupting his train of thought. "Get in here!"

Dean puts the beer down with a click and hoofs it into the living room, Jo at his heels.

"Find something?" he asks, even though it's obvious from the manic gleam in his brother's eyes that he has.

"'December 8th, 1995,'" Sam reads. "'Daniel called and asked me to look into a case in a town in Utah called Enoch. He was afraid it was vamps, but it turned out to just be a couple of ghouls who'd gotten creative. Stopped in to see him on the way back home, but he didn't want anything to do with me right then. Told me he didn't want me coming around and leading vamps to his location. Guess I'll have to add Manning to the list of cities I've been kicked out of. If I keep up this rate over the next twenty years, I might actually catch up to John.'"

Sam gives Dean a victorious look.

"It's not an address or a phone number, but it's a start," he says. "I'll keep reading and see if I can find more but…"

"It's a lead," Dean smiles. "Good job, Sammy."

Even with just a name and a town, Dean has no doubt they can track the old man down. They've done a lot more with a lot less. And even if Elkins _can__'__t_ tell them anything useful about the gun, it's still a huge relief to find that they haven't made this little side trip for nothing. When they get back and eventually have to answer to Dad, that's gonna be a big point in their favor. Dean claps a hand on Sam's shoulder, and the kid takes practically beams up at him before turning back to the journal.

"Well, alright. Glad you found something, at least," Ellen says, making her way into the kitchen.

Dean crosses over to sidle up to Jo again. He may not be cruising for a hook-up, but a little shameless flirting never hurt anyone. He gives her a wink, and she shakes her head, mouth quirking into a smile against her will.

"I gotta run to the store to pick up some stuff for the bar," Ellen calls from the next room. "Want me to pick up something to eat while I'm out?"

"You really don't have to do that," Sam tells her before Dean can get a word in. "We're fine."

Ellen pokes her head out of the doorway and fixes him with a stern look.

"You boys look like you've been chewed up and spit out. You think I'm gonna starve you on top of that, you've got another think comin'."

"Ignore Sam," Dean tells her. "He's always tryin' to watch his girlish figure. Know anywhere that makes a decent salad?"

"Not through personal experience," Ellen replies, "but I think I can scrounge something up."

"Great. He'll get that," Dean announces, ignoring the death glare Sam's aiming at the side of his head. "I'll have whatever you're having."

"Jo?"

"Just get me the usual," her daughter answers.

Ellen nods, turns grab her keys off the rack, and then there's a deafening _bam_ as the Harvelle's front door explodes inward, and suddenly John Winchester is standing in the living room, his face like a thundercloud, his gun drawn and pointed right at the center of the room.

Right at Sam.


	11. Chapter 11

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed! Seemed like we nearly killed some of you with that cliffie last week! Hope you all survived until Sunday. Enjoy the chapter and please leave your thoughts if you've got the time!

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><p>Several things happen at once. Sam starts to his feet, sending Bill Harvelle's journal skittering onto the floor. Ellen pulls a handgun out of the holster on her belt and has it trained on Dad in a matter of seconds. And Dean, whose years of training should have him doing the exact same thing, gets as far as "Sam" and "gun" and finds himself across the room and shoving himself in front of his brother before he even realizes he's planning to move.<p>

"Dad?!" Sam exclaims, and Dean can feel his brother's heart hammering against his back. "What the hell?!"

Dad doesn't answer, just takes a step closer, expression unreadable. Ellen takes a step of her own, finger on the trigger of her pistol.

"Put the gun down, John."

"Dean," Dad says finally, voice low and whisky-graveled. "Come here. Now."

It's an order, but every instinct Dean has is screaming at him not to move from this spot. He doesn't know what's going on here but there's something dangerous in his dad's eyes, there's a gun in the room, and Dean doesn't have a choice here. Dean has to _protect Sam_.

"No, sir," he says firmly.

Sam makes a move to get out from behind him, and Dean reaches back and digs his fingers tight into Sam's elbow.

"What's going on, Dad?" he asks in a low voice.

He watches as his father's eyes flick around the room, assessing the situation. It's the same look he gets on hunts, trying to get a handle on what his odds are, and Dean does not like where that train of thought it heading. Not at all.

Dad's eyes flicker over Ellen and then to Jo, who Dean's only now realizing he's abandoned on the other side of the room with nothing to defend herself but the little pigsticker she's got gripped in her bloodless fist.

"John, put the goddamn gun down right now!" Ellen explodes, at the same moment that Sam says:

"Christo!"

Dad doesn't flinch. His eyes don't go black. There's a long pause, and then he just slowly puts the safety back on his gun and lowers his arm to tuck it into the back of his waistband.

"Ellen," he says gruffly in greeting.

It takes a substantially longer time for Ellen to lower her gun, but she finally does, glaring at John, her face tense and angry.

"Don't 'Ellen' me, you son of a bitch. You're payin' for that door."

Dad grunts in reply. He pulls a flask out of his jacket and unscrews the cap, and for a second, Dean thinks he's going to take a swig. The man smells like he hasn't stopped drinking since he stormed out of the cabin last night, the reek of booze mixing sickeningly with the flowery scent of Ellen's potpourri.

Instead, Dean finds himself with a face-full of what he assumes to be holy water. He sputters, spitting out the salty liquid that's splashed in his mouth.

"I said 'Christo,'" Sam says tightly. "No one in this room is a fucking demon, okay?"

"This isn't Kiddy League anymore," Dad tells him. "They're not that easy to spot."

Sam huffs out an annoyed breath.

"_Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas_," he rattles off then sweeps his arms wide when nobody starts going all Emily Rose. "Now, you wanna tell us what the hell is going on?"

"You really think I'm the one who needs to explain myself?" Dad demands. "After the stunt you just pulled?"

"Dad, this isn't Sam's fault," Dean breaks in.

"That so?" Dad snaps, fixing Dean with a hard gaze that makes him feel all of three inches tall. "So it was your idea to run off in the middle of the night without getting me to sign off on it? That what you want me to believe?"

"Yes, sir," Dean tells him, tilting his chin up.

Sam finally shakes free of his hold.

"Come on, Dean," he says, stepping around and shouldering in front of Dean, crossing his arms. "It was my idea. Everyone in this _room_ knows it was my idea."

"Not sure I know that," Ellen tosses out.

"You stay the hell out of this, Ellen," John snaps, and Ellen is every bit the woman Bobby said she was, because she does not give an inch in the face of John's glare, just sets her jaw, narrows her eyes, and lights into John for all he's worth.

"The hell I will," she spits. "I know you are not coming into my house, breaking down my front door, pulling a gun on my _daughter_, and then telling me to stand by and watch you tear into your boys before the holy water dries on my freshly vacuumed carpets. You might be stubborn as hell, John Winchester, and crazy to boot, but I know you are not that stupid."

"Ellen," John glares.

"No," she interrupts, not giving an inch. "You want to take this downstairs, have a drink, and then discuss this with your grown ass sons like an adult, you can, but if that gun comes out or I see you starting trouble in my bar, I swear by all that is good and holy, I will throw you out on your ass and lock the door behind you."

"Ellen," their dad objects again, defensive and angry and apparently outmatched, because this lady is having none of it, marching across her neat maroon carpets and getting in his face like it's an Olympic sport,

"She is my _daughter_, John," she hisses, jabbing a finger at Jo. "My. Daughter. And don't think I don't know you would have pumped her full of lead in a heartbeat, she so much as twitched."

"El—" he protests, and Dean doesn't imagine the way he softens, just a little, when his eyes dart to Jo, watching this all from her place across the room.

"Take a walk, John," Ellen interrupts, and no one in the room is making the mistake of thinking that's a request. "Have a drink. Boys'll be down in a minute."

There's an awkward silence in the apartment as John turns, steps over the ruin of the Harvelle's front door, and makes his way down the stairs, every step echoing back up to the apartment through the open frame.

"You really think he needs _another_ drink?" Sam asks dryly when they hear the heavy, iron clank of the door at the bottom of the stairs slamming shut.

"Honey, we really gonna pretend that it matters at this point?" Ellen sighs, picking up her keys from where they lie abandoned on the carpet and shoving them into a pocket.

Sam doesn't want to admit it, but she's right. His dad's been putting his liver through its paces for the past twenty three years. It doesn't matter if John's had two drinks or twenty, he's gonna do what he wants and say what he wants, and it doesn't matter who's around or why he shouldn't. He'll drink when he wants, stop when he wants, pass out where he lands, and fuck anyone who tries to stop him.

Sam stopped trying a long time ago.

"You boys gonna be alright?" Ellen asks, giving her living room, now considerably less livable with the holy water puddles and busted door, a disparaging look.

Sam looks to Dean, who gives a heavy sigh and scoops Bill Harvelle's journal up with a shuttered look on his face.

"We'll be fine," he mutters, his eyes not leaving the battered book in his hands.

Sam wants to reach out to him, to get some contact, to try and reassure Dean that it's okay, that it's not his fault. He's just not sure if stepping in right now would make things better or worse.

"Alright," Ellen nods, apparently deciding that things can't possibly get any worse from here. "Josie, get your coat. We'll go out the back. Dean, washroom's down the hall. Be sure to lock up on your way out."

She ushers Jo over the empty threshold, pausing in the doorway.

"You boys take care now, and remember, I come back and find my bar burnt to the ground, I'm takin' it outta both your hides. Understand?"

"Yes, ma'am," they answer in unison.

"Good. We'll be back with lunch in two shakes. You go straighten things out with your daddy," she instructs, a small, encouraging smile on her face.

"Yes, ma'am," Sam nods.

He takes the journal from Dean and puts it on the least holy water-spattered patch of coffee table he can find as Ellen makes her way downstairs after Jo.

"You okay?" he asks softly after they've gone, wanting to touch, to comfort, to make Dean understand that it's not his fault, it's _Sam's_ and their Dad is an asshole and none of this is right, none of it is.

But he knows Dean doesn't want to hear it, _won't_ hear it, and he can't stomach the thought of getting pushed away, not after almost having a heart attack when their dad broke down that door, when he was staring down the barrel of that gun with no warning, no prep, no weapon, and suddenly, coldly certain that this was it. He was going to die.

And he wouldn't even know why, or who, or what it was that made their dad kill him.

But then Dean was there, sold and warm and not budging, not an inch, not from where he was dead set on shielding Sam, refusing logic and common sense and an _order_ from _Dad_ to protect his little brother.

To stand with Sam.

Sam knows this is big. So much bigger than taking off in the middle of the night after a lead. Knows from this sudden, unsteady feeling of the world shifting on its axis that things aren't the same, will never be the same, and he knows from Dean's still, tense silence, that he knows it, too.

On the strength of that, Sam won't press Dean, won't push him or pull too hard. He knows his brother, knows he'll need time to think, to work through this in his own head.

Sam can wait. He's with Dean, never not gonna be.

He's got all the time in the world.

* * *

><p>"M'fine, Sammy," Dean mumbles eventually, scrubbing a hand over his face and wincing when it comes away soaked in holy water.<p>

Dammit. Which way had Ellen said that the bathroom was again? No way he's gonna go pokin' around up here. Knowing this woman, he'd either fall into a stash of dead chickens and C4, or some Martha Stewart nightmare of a sewing room, and honestly, either way, he's not sure he'd ever be able to look Ellen Harvelle in the eye again.

But Dean doesn't have to worry about that for long, 'cause Sammy's got the sleeve of his jacket, rolling his eyes with a smirk and tugging him down the hall to the bathroom, pushing him in, handing him a towel, and trying not to fuss.

Dean appreciates Sam's restraint on the whole girly feelings talk thing, he really does, but even if Sam isn't brewing tea and making the puppy eyes and quoting Dr. Phil at him, Dean can feel him wanting to. Sam's palpable need to fuss and worry and share warm, cuddly emotions fills the air almost as persistently as Ellen's goddamn rose potpourri as Dean scrubs a soft, monogrammed cream towel over his face to get rid of the last evidence that his father thought, even for an instant, that Dean was possessed. That what he'd done was so off the book, so out of character, that the only explanation was that his son had been taken over, mind and body, by a swirl of thick, dark black smoke, a twisted evil that was walking around wearing his body like a cheap tux.

And okay, to be fair, Dean _did_ take off with Sammy in the middle of the night and then defy a direct order, and yeah, that's _different_, but it's still _him_.

And he had reasons. Good ones.

Dad should know the difference, right? Shouldn't he?

And yeah, Sam's pulling himself back from making a big deal out of all of it, Dean can tell, but that still leaves him in the wake of seeing Dad pointing live rounds at Sammy's fucking head. Dean's got a shit-ton of things going on in his mind that he doesn't exactly feel like mucking through alone, so any minute Sam wants to turn up the gooey shit to eleven, that'd be great, 'cause Dean doesn't really know how to handle this and he really, _really_ doesn't know how to bring it up without forfeiting his Man Card for good.

"You alright, Sammy?" he asks, looking up and meeting his brother's eyes in the mirror from where Sam is leaning on the doorframe.

It's as good a try as any.

"Yeah, Dean," Sam nods, straightening up. "I'm fine. Why?"

"I don't know, man," Dean shakes his head, stares down at Ellen Harvelle's pristine, porcelain sink, trying to process, to work through this shit. "Just… _Holy water_? _Possession_? All 'cause we took off for a few hours? That was so off the book we had to be _possessed_?"

Dean doesn't know if it's a question or an answer, an explanation or a theory or just plain, old fashioned guessing. He's not sure what he's trying to do, whose behavior he's trying to rationalize here, only that he needs answers, directions, something to make this all make sense.

"Dean, he's on a bender," Sam answers, steps forward, gets a hand on Dean's arm, and he wishes for a second that he wasn't wearing his jacket so he could feel the heat of Sam's palm, skin against skin, steady and warm and alive, just for a little, just to get him through this. "You know how he gets. So this time he's paranoid instead of angry. It's not a big thing."

Dean turns, leaning his hip against the sink, and sacrifices Sam's hand on his arm for facing his brother, for eye-to-eye and face-to-face, shoved in each other's orbit to fit in the postage stamp sized bathroom.

"Sammy, he drew on us. On you. That's a big thing."

"Yeah, well are you really surprised?" Sam laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I've gone and got you thinking, making your own decisions. He's probably just mad that I undid all those years of programming."

"Dude," Dean scoffs, wrinkling his nose, but Sam persists.

"Hey, I'm serious," Sam jokes, this time with a weak but genuine smile. "Your circuits fry, he's gotta send you back to the head office, wait for a replacement..."

"Nerd," Dean dismisses, trying to squash a smile.

"But hey, I think you'll like the Dark Side," Sammy grins. "Word is, we've got cookies."

"No pie?" Dean scoffs, straightening up and moving to leave the bathroom. "Lame."

"Hey," Sam catches his wrist as he moves to get by him, stops Dean when they're at their closest, crammed together in the Harvelle's tiny bathroom. Dean can feel the heat of him now, how warm and safe and here and alive his baby brother is, pulsing down through Sam's fingers, long and calloused and tangled around Dean's pulse, and it helps.

God, does it help.

"It's just Dad getting boozed up and paranoid. Nothing else," Sam murmurs, serious again.

"I know, Sammy. I know," Dean nods, ducking his head, swallowing his doubts, because he wants to believe that, he does, but it just doesn't add up, doesn't seem right, not really.

Dean can see that Sam doesn't buy it, either, not completely, but he doesn't press the issue, lets Dean spackle over his doubts with denial and bravado and habit and pretend they're not there, shifting and growing and eating away at everything he thought he knew, everything he believed in so hard for so long.

Dean's thankful that Sam doesn't insist they drag this out in the open, pick apart and examine every aspect of this little crisis in front of God and man. If he's gonna do this, gonna let this happen, it's gonna happen in private. Maybe even in secret. And if Sammy knows about it, has known about it, maybe even saw it for what it was before Dean realized it himself?

Well. His secret's safe with Sam.

Always has been.

* * *

><p>"You ready to go down?" Sam asks after a long moment, and Dean shrugs, twitches his wrist out of Sam's grip.<p>

"Guess we gotta face the music sometime, right, Sammy?" he offers, pasting on a thin, hollow imitation of his favorite devil-may-care grin and resettling his jacket on his shoulders.

"Dean…" Sam protests, because he doesn't have to pretend. Not for Sam, not ever, and he should know that. Sam hopes like hell that Dean knows that, realizes it, drops the act already.

Dean lets the grin fall, looks down for a minute, bumping his hand against Sam's almost accidentally-on-purpose, like he isn't sure if it would be welcome or not, like he isn't sure if it would help or hurt.

Sam snags his brother's hand in his, catching his palm and just holding on, to let Dean know Sam's with him, that it's okay.

"I coulda said no any time, Sammy," he says, looking up and meeting Sam's eyes, steady and sure and serious, before giving Sam's hand a squeeze and letting go. "Any time."

Sam knows that's a goddamn lie, and a halfhearted one at that. If Sam really wanted to go, wanted to run off in the night after a lead or a hunt or a goddamn butterfly, there's no way Dean would let him go alone.

Not again. Not after everything that's happened.

Because Sam is Sam, and he knows Dean better than anyone. Anyone in the whole world.

So he knows better than to call him on it, to drag the lie out into the open and pry it apart for the world to see. He lets it go, just straightens Ellen Harvelle's pressed, cream towels on the way out of the bathroom, shoulders the door back into place, and follows Dean down the staircase.

* * *

><p>The walk down the stairs feels like a funeral march, a slow, steady progress to an early grave, because Dean knew what he was doing, and he knew what it would lead to, knew it would mean this walk, this talk, this heavy, aching, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.<p>

God, it's like getting sent to the woodshed, except the woodshed is a scarred oak counter with a bottle of Jack and his dad ready to light into him in any way he can for dropping the ball, fucking it up, letting him down _again_. Except Dean isn't even _sorry_ this time, doesn't feel that cold, bitter sting of regret, of remorse. Goddammit, he'd do it all over again, he _would_. Because it's Sam and it's the case and there was no reason, _no reason_, not to go chase down this fucking lead, and look, it's got them a city, a name, maybe even an address with a little digging, so what the hell is wrong with that? What the hell did that hurt?

Why the hell did that end with Dean being the only thing standing between his baby brother and the barrel of his father's gun? Dad ordering him to step aside, to leave Sammy standing alone in the crosshairs.

_Why_?

It's dizzying, wrong and confusing, and he's not looking forward to the talk ahead, to this awful, weird, bad-dirty-wrong world of getting reamed out by Dad for something he doesn't regret at all, for a call he still thinks was the right one. The only solid thing in this strange new world is Sam, standing tall and defiant behind him, a steady shadow at his back, too close and just close enough, the heat of his body leeching forward, pushing to reach Dean through the leather and flannel, to press against him as he fumbles with the latch on the iron door at the base of the stairs.

"Dean, you sure you're okay?" Sam ventures quietly, probably because Dean's hands are steady as fuck when hunting down baddies, never shake an inch when he's got a gun in his grip and a monster in his sights, but are now having trouble with a five dollar knob from the Home Depot.

God, Sam at the barrel of Dad's gun, the same cold, hateful look in their father's eyes that Dean's seen a hundred times, a thousand times, right before he pumps a monster so full of lead it clinks when it hits the ground.

Sam cold and unmoving on Ellen Harvelle's maroon carpet, hazel eyes empty and unblinking, mouth slack, blood dripping sluggishly to stain the dark shag a sodden, shameful black.

Dean's baby brother stiff and lifeless with his hands crossed over his chest, just seconds before a hunter's wake turns him to black, burned skin and cracked, charred bone, just a memory of grins and dimples and laughing in the passenger seat, of summers stretched out, watching the stars swim by, of winters making s'mores in motel microwaves, marshmallow-covered fingers and sticky mouths, of lazy, achy post-hunt mornings, tired and tangled in the same bed, sleepily arguing over who has to leave soft pillows and warm blankets to bring back coffee and breakfast and pills.

All that, all that and more, gone forever, blasted out of existence with just a twitch of Dad's finger, 'cause Dad doesn't flinch and he doesn't miss and he never, ever pulls his gun without a reason, so why? Why Sammy and not Dean? Why wouldn't he tell them? Why wouldn't he believe them? Why wouldn't he take that goddamn gun off of Sam?

Dean can't suppress a shudder, can't shake the chill that runs through him, the awful, inescapable burn the thought leaves inside because Dad was _serious_, and Sam was _right there_, but why? _Why_?

"Sammy," Dean breathes, and he's not begging, he's not, but he's got to ask, has to hope that if he just _tries_. "There any chance in hell that if I asked you, you'd go upstairs, get some rest, read that damn journal or somethin' till Dad and I hash this out?"

"Dean," Sam grits out, stubborn and stupid, and Dean's isn't surprised. Can't be.

It'd be a cold day in hell that Sam backs down from an argument with Dad, and Dean knows that. Knows it the same way he knows that the world'll have goddamn ended before Sammy lets Dean walk into a fight with no one at his back.

"Didn't think so," Dean says with a deep sigh. "Had to ask, Sammy. Had to ask."

"Dean, you're kinda freakin' me out here," Sam admits.

Dean can't blame the kid, can't act like any of this is normal or comforting. Hell, he's probably letting his brother down by letting this rattle him at all. Sam's gone through enough, doesn't need more reasons to worry.

"Just didn't like seeing Dad pull a gun on you, that's all," Dean shakes his head, tries to shove that one deep, deep down where it'll only come back up in nightmares, in nightmares and daydreams and memories of things that can never, ever happen again.

Sam nods, glares at the door, mouth tight. Dean knows there's things he's not saying, because they'll either make things worse or send them straight to hell. Honestly, Dean's not sure either of those options would be a bad thing anymore, because he doesn't understand this, not this world where instead of being pissed at Dean for leaving, Dad's pissed at Sammy for having the idea to go. Where Dad doesn't care that they went, he cares why they went, who thought of it, whose fault, whose guilt, who should be on the other end of the gun barrel, except it seems like every answer is Sam, every shouting match, every argument ends with them facing off and it's so much worse, so many hundred thousand times worse than before because it's not just Sam versus Dad anymore.

It's not.

It stopped being that when Dad leveled live rounds at Sammy, when he had a weapon out and loaded before he even opened the door. When he sent that glare, that sneer, that look that used to be just for the filthy, murderous things they hunted at Dean's baby brother.

It's not Sam versus Dad. Not anymore.

Because Dean? Dean cannot, _will not_, be on any side of any argument that is okay with putting a bullet in his brother.

He just won't.

And if that means he not with Dad on this? Well…

That's just what it means then.


	12. Chapter 12

A short chapter this week but an important one! For those wondering what's going on in John's head... Here you go.

* * *

><p>John takes Ellen at her word, snags the top shelf whiskey and the least-busted stool at the scarred, stained bar and settles in for the long haul with a shot glass and everything he never wanted to believe about his boys.<p>

He didn't want to face this. Pushed it down, made excuses, turned a blind eye for so, so damn long, but when he got back to that cabin, when he opened the door to find an empty house and signs of a struggle, a vague, scribbled note on the table, tire marks in the drive?

What the hell else was he supposed to think?

What the hell else would _anyone_ think? If they'd seen what he'd seen, if they knew what he knew?

The salt didn't tell him anything. Not the salt or the holy water or the name of the goddamn Lord. All that got him was Sammy, sharp eyed and bitter, spouting off the most sarcastic exorcism John's ever heard.

That gives him nothing.

Nothing but more questions, more suspicions, more fears and more doubts. Dammit, how's he supposed to leave them alone now? Now that he knows nothing he's ever known is certain, is useful, is proof one way or the other?

God, Sam - _Sammy - _Mary's baby. And Dean…

He has to know. For real. For certain.

He has to know, or he'll never be able to live with himself.

The boys come through to the bar in tense, guilty silence, Sam like a thunderhead over Dean's shoulder, close and closed and angry, so angry.

Of course he's angry. The kid's always been angry, always been stubborn and resistant and tense. He's always had nothing but scowls and smart-ass remarks for John, no matter what, ever since he was a baby, crying and fussing and wriggling his way towards Dean any chance he'd get.

Dean…

Dean, who _always_ knew to listen. To follow orders. To pack up and pull out and get the job done, to tuck his head and do the work and let it go at the end of the day, relax with a game and a drink, just like his old man.

Dean, who always had one of those giant goddamn grins for John the second he walked through the door after a hunt, who could always make things just a little better, no matter how bad the job had gone.

Dean, who had let his little brother wail on John to his heart's content before getting between them. Dean, who had taken off in the middle of the night with Sammy. Dean, who had been across Ellen Harvelle's living room the second John came in the door, planting himself square in front of his little brother and not moving, not an inch.

Not even when John ordered him to.

Dean, who had straight-up lied to him when he asked whose idea it was.

God, it's like he's not even the same _person_ anymore.

"What the hell was that, boys?" John gravels, taking a long pull of Jack to get himself the hell through this.

"Got a lead on the gun while you were out," Sam pipes up from his place at Dean's elbow, as sharp and vicious as always. "We tried to call you."

John's not imagining the taunting smirk in the corner of Sam's mouth, hiding beneath the tight, pinched anger. He doesn't miss the implication that if he were working instead of drinking, if he'd had his phone on, if he had just been paying _attention_-

But this isn't about him.

"So you thought you'd run off—" John accuses, slamming the glass down on the counter, but Sam doesn't let him get out another word, steps around Dean, fires back in earnest.

"God, I wonder who gave us that idea!" Sam bursts out. "Come on, Dad, urgent lead in the middle of the night? Had to take off with nothing but a note? No time to call? Sound like anyone you know?

"Sammy," Dean interrupts quietly, and Sam rolls his eyes. His lips thin and his face tightens, but he backs down, and John can see the arguments rise up, can see how much it costs Sam to not toss out the next barb, to not keep pressing his advantage, to not twist the knife, but he bears down, swallows them, locks them in.

All on a word from Dean…

"Bill Harvelle's journal mighta gotten us a lead on Daniel Elkins. We find him, we find out more about the gun," Dean continues tightly. "Now, are we gonna look into it or sit here and bitch at each other all damn day?"

"Elkins went underground ages ago. Dropped off the map. No one knows where he is," John dismisses, but Dean doesn't back down.

"Bill Harvelle knew," his eldest pushes. "Named a town: Manning."

"And how many Mannings you think there are in the Continental US?" John snipes, not liking this one bit.

He doesn't like not having the reins on this one. He doesn't like back-talk, and he doesn't like need-to-know, and he absolutely _hates_ the thought that he might've burned the only bridge that'd get him to the gun, to justice and peace and finally, _finally_ finishing off Mary's killer years ago over an argument so full of rage and cheap booze, he can't even remember what started it any more.

"Five," Sam supplies, looking up from his fancy phone with a smirk. "But there's only one that Bill Harvelle would have passed through on the way from Utah to Nebraska, and that's Manning, Colorado. Not even a day from here."

"Bill's journal say where in Manning the old bastard's holed up?" John grumbles.

"We didn't get that far. Sammy, you wanna go upstairs and check?" Dean asks, throwing a glance over his shoulder as he reaches over the bar and pours himself a drink. "I'll save you a seat, huh?"

"That really necessary, Dean?" Sam snaps, mouth tight.

"Hey, journal's upstairs and we gotta know," Dean shrugs, tossing back the liquor with an easy flick of his wrist. "Can't do anything without it."

Sam glares at Dean, a long, angry look that would have been the start of a fight a few years ago, but now just heralds stiff shoulders and an angry twist at the corner of his mouth. Sam turns on his heel and slams the door, leaving John alone with his eldest for the first time since this whole shit show started, since he stumbled back into that cabin in Chicago and thought he'd lost everything, thought he had nothing left.

Nothing at all.

"You know better than to leave like that," John grinds out, pouring himself another drink and watching as Dean does the same.

"It was for the case," Dean answers, back straight as his lips wrap around another shot, swallow the burn like a pro. "You didn't answer, and we didn't know when you'd be back. Didn't seem like there'd be a better time."

"You took off—"

"And got us a lead," Dean interrupts. "There somethin' else I need to know about, Dad? Somethin' that's got you aiming guns at Sammy? Throwin' holy water in my face for doing my job? For doing _our_ job?"

"Hunting this thing's dangerous work," John fires back, hating this newfound defiance, this brand, spanking new insubordinance that's sprouted in Dean, taken root like a goddamn weed, like a cancer spreading and eating away at his boy, his _son_. "It's not Grandma rattlin' pipes in the attic! They could be _anyone_, _anywhere_, and you need to be prepared for that! Any behavior, _anything_ out of the ordinary could be a sign!"

"A .45 ain't gonna do a damn thing against a demon, Dad," Dean points out, voice rough and eyes hollow, and he's right.

Goddammit, he's right.

He's _right_ and he's _wrong,_ and even though John didn't want to - never wanted to, hates the idea that he _has_ to - he can't see a way around it anymore. Not with the way things are now, and especially not with the way things are headed.

He's going to have to tell Dean.

He's going to have to tell Dean very soon.

And John doesn't know how he's gonna do it, if this'll fix things or fuck 'em all to hell, even worse than they already are, but he waited, held off, and look what the fuck went and happened. He's out of options here. Can't put it off any longer.

But _God_, does he want to.


	13. Chapter 13

Hope you all enjoy the chapter! Just so you know, we'll be on vacation in Japan next week, so there won't be an update until the Sunday after next. See you then!

* * *

><p>The silence stretches out, grows cold and awkward in the dim light of the closed bar, the only sounds the clink of ice in John's glass and the occasional 'zzt' of the bug zapper.<p>

Dean slows down, switches from Jack to draft when it starts getting hard to swallow the questions that keep cropping up, that would get him a sharp word or an even sharper cuff to the head if he ever, _ever_ said them aloud.

Sitting in a bar, having a drink with his dad. No hunt to research, no scam to pull, no Sammy in the corner scowling and bitching about the seats being sticky and him having school in the morning.

Once upon a time, this would've been something he'd dream of. Serious 'best afternoon ever' material.

Now it's just uncomfortable.

He just wants Sam to come back downstairs. To bring that damn journal and solve this damn case and make things fucking normal again, because Dean's life, always a parade of freaky and unsettling shit, is taking a quick turn down fucked-up-as-hell lane, and he's gettin' real tired of it.

It is entirely possible those last few shots of Jack were a bad idea.

"No more mentions of Elkins in the journal," Sam announces, striding back into the bar and setting the worn book on countertop, "but I figure no news is good news there. If he'd have packed up or something, pretty sure Bill would've known about it. Seems like he was a pretty personable guy, kept up with people like no other hunter I've ever seen."

"I keep up with people," Dean grumbles into his beer, and he sees Sam's eyes snap to him, note the shot glass, the tense line of Dean's shoulders, the level of whisky in the bottle at John's elbow.

"Name three people that you called this week," Sam challenges, taking the seat next to Dean and letting their knees bump together, slouching on the bar stool so that their shoulders touch, their elbows jockey for real estate on the scarred countertop.

"No hunters and no hookups," he stipulates, holding up a finger as Dean opens his mouth to answer.

"That doesn't prove anything," Dean pouts as he comes up empty, taking another sip and nudging Sam with his shoulder.

"Proves you're antisocial," Sam grins, lightly elbowing Dean in retaliation.

"So all we've got is the town Elkins _might_ have lived in ten years ago?" John demands. "Not exactly a hot lead, boys."

"Well, it's more than we had last night," Sam snaps, glaring at John, and he's about to open his mouth, about to go after John again for everything their dad ever did, real or imagined, and Dean is just not ready for that, not after today.

"Sammy, you wanna go grab your laptop?" he asks, digging out the keys to the Impala and sliding them over. "We run a check on Elkinses in Manning, it could give us an address, maybe a little more to go on."

"Dean," Sam bitches and Dean catches the look his brother shoots him, gets the resentment at having to run and fetch, being sent off to grab this or that while the grownups talked.

Dean gets it, he does. Remembers tiny, teenaged Sammy fuming about it on more than one occasion, but this is the next step, the smart thing to do, and hell if having Sam and Dad in the same room, his father's gun out of sight but not out of mind isn't a recipe for disaster right now, doesn't have Dean paranoid as fuck, just waiting for John or Sam to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing, for the goddamn bell to ring and the Mexican standoff that is their whole fucking family dynamic these days to be on again.

So yeah, he sent Sam off to grab the fucking journal and to grab the fucking laptop, and he's gonna catch hell about that later, he knows, but if Dean's choices are getting bitched at in private and watching Sam and Dad tear into each other in a room full of guns, booze, and glass bottles, he'll take Sammy giving him an earful over Sam and Dad finally having their ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny any day.

God, Dean's gonna get a fucking ulcer, this goes on much longer.

Sam stomps back in, laptop bag slung over his shoulder, bitchface firmly applied, and throws himself back into the barstool at Dean's side, digging out the battered computer and firing it up in petulant silence.

"Elkins is careful," John gravels, pouring himself a few more fingers of whisky and eyeing Sam with a look Dean can't quite decipher. "No way you're just gonna be able to look him up in the Yellow Pages."

Sam snorts, a grin that's more than a little smug playing at the corner of his mouth as he works.

"That's why I'm going deeper," he explains. "County Clerk's Office, Probate, DMV, State Troopers, local PD, Social Security. He might not have his name in the phonebook, but if he's gotten a driver's license, parking ticket, or Social Security check any time in the last ten years, we can find him."

"And if he's using a fake name?" John challenges, putting back more of the booze. Dean should probably defend Sammy here, step in as their dad tries his damnedest to poke holes in Sammy's research, but the kid is _good_, and Sam'd never admit it himself, but he likes to show off, just a little.

Dean sits back, lets his brother have his fun. 'Sides, it's nice to see Sammy in his element like this, on the trail of some obscure name or date or bit of knowledge. He gets this look on his face, this half a smile, half a quirked eyebrow, and he's interested, engaged, that huge brain just going a mile a minute, every thought and theory playing across his face, a thousand possibilities rising and being dismissed, replaced, refined until he finds it, zeroes in on what he's been looking for, and gets this satisfied, triumphant grin on his face.

And Dean'd be lyin' if he said that little grin wasn't one of his favorite things to see on a hunt, that first hint of them having it locked up, having the thing, whatever it is, beat. 'Cause once Sammy finds their answers? Once they know what they're up against? Well, then it's only a matter of time.

Sam shrugs easily in response to John's question, keeps tapping away.

"Harvelle never mentions one," he dismisses, "and even if he is, Manning's not that big, and it's definitely not bursting with paranoid ex-hunters. If he's there, we'll find him."

"I'm hearin' a lot of 'if's," John grumbles, pouring himself another glass.

Dean feels Sam tense beside him as he watches John put down the drink, sits up, gets a hand on Sammy's sleeve, ready to defuse the next fight.

"If you want," Sam begins, "I could tell you the address for Daniel James Elkins, born August 8, 1938, Social Security number 183-33-4786, resident of Manning, Colorado instead?"

Sam is grinning, and Dean is so, so damn _proud_ of him in that moment he can't help the grin the spreads across his face.

"That might be a new record for you, Sammy," he laughs, clapping him on the back and peering at the screen where, sure enough, spelled out in neat, organized government records and receipts, is everything they'd ever want to know about Dan Elkins.

"How the hell—?" John starts, but Sammy cuts him off. Dean can't really blame him. That one was going nowhere good.

"Property tax records," Sam supplies, rooting around in his laptop bag until he snags their journal, scribbling down the address on a fresh page, right behind the notes Dean had written as they were looking into the murders in Chicago. "He may be a paranoid, antisocial bastard, but he's a paranoid, antisocial bastard that does his civic duty."

"Sloppy of him," John grumbles, staring past Sam and taking another drink.

"So, we hit the road, get into Manning in a few hours, then see what Elkins knows about this gun," Dean outlines. "Sounds good."

"_I'm_ hitting the road," John corrects, refilling his glass. "You boys bunk down here. Sam, gonna need that address."

"The hell you will," Sam snaps, his hand clenching around the journal with the address in it so tight, his knuckles are a stark, sharp white against the black leather cover. "If we're going, we're going together."

"Dad, I thought we were gonna go after this thing as a family," Dean adds quietly.

"Elkins is jumpy. Doesn't like strangers," John explains, but there's something in his eyes as he says it, something about the way he looks down…

"Then we'll wait in the car," Sam bites out, his teeth clenched.

Dean can't help but be with Sammy on this one. There's no reason for them to stay here, no reason they'd need to be parked at the Roadhouse being babysat by Ellen Harvelle like little kids.

If Elkins gives them a lead, something they could follow to the gun and the demon and ending this thing once and for all, it'd be better if they were in the same place at the same time on the same page, especially with demons on their tail all the damn time. Especially if anyone, anywhere, could be the enemy wearing a civilian's face, just waiting for the chance to take them out.

Sticking together makes sense, lines up with everything John's ever taught them, so why's their dad so dead-set against it?

John's about to speak up, to fire back at Sam, when the Roadhouse's front door swings open, revealing Ellen and Jo, weighed down with groceries and enough food to satisfy an army.

"Got four large pizzas, two meat lovers, two supremes, three things of hot wings," Ellen lists, passing the groceries off to Jo to carry on to the back and setting the pizzas down on one of the tables near the bar. "And a chicken Cesar salad for you, Sam honey. Hope that's okay."

"It's great, thanks Ellen," Sam answers, flushing a little. "You really didn't have to."

"Don't worry about it, hon," she dismisses as Jo walks back into the bar with plates. "S'time for lunch anyway, and Jo here doesn't look like it, but she can put it away like a goddamn linebacker."

"_Mom_," Jo hisses, shooting a glance at the Winchesters and trying to hide the blush creeping up her neck. It's cute and a hundred percent embarrassed teenager, which has Dean very worried that a van is gonna pull up and haul him away any second now for makin' a move on her earlier. Seriously, how old is she anyway?

"Sweetie, it's lunchtime and your stomach's been grumblin' since you busted Dean here in the face," Ellen laughs, pushing two of the tables together and putting her hands on her hips. "If it was ever a secret, it wasn't gonna be one for long. Now, ya'll wanna keep sitting at that bar like bumps on a log or do you wanna come over here and have somethin' to eat?"

Sam and Dean take the hint, grab some beers and follow Jo over to the tables to take a seat, John trailing at a sullen, reluctant pace behind them, refilled tumbler firmly clenched in one hand.

Dean considers it a minor miracle he didn't bring the whole bottle in protest.

"You boys find what you're lookin' for?" Ellen asks brightly, gamely ignoring Jo's continuing embarrassment in favor of passing out plates and doling out pizza slices and wings.

"Did we ever," Dean answers, shooting a grin at Sam, who's adding dressing to his salad and trying to hide a blush of his own. "Sammy here busted it wide open, got us everything we need to track Elkins down."

"Now John," Ellen starts, snagging some pizza and wings for herself and twisting the cap off of a beer. "S'been a while since I've seen it myself, but from what I recall, that ain't exactly what your happy face looks like."

"We gonna eat or just run our mouths all day?" John grumbles, snagging a second slice of meat lover's and setting into it with a glare.

"It is a relief to know you're just as charmin' as always," Ellen says, before turning to her daughter, who's sitting at her elbow, putting away slice after slice of supreme. "Jo, honey, could you go get Ash up? He sleeps any later, we're gonna be pullin' him outta the pinball circuits by closin' time."

"Mom," Jo complains, swallowing a mouthful of mushrooms and peppers.

"Joanna, Sam and Dean are young men, got their whole lives ahead of 'em," Ellen interrupts. "Ain't no need for them to be subject to a sight like that, not without warning and at least a week of prep first."

"Fine," Jo bites out and stomps across the bar to disappear through battered side door.

Sam and Dean keep their eyes tactfully on their plates, pointedly not looking at either Ellen or each other.

John drinks, completely unfazed by the entire exchange. Dean's pretty sure Ellen could do a fan dance with a slice of meat lovers and a hot wing, and the only thing on Dad's mind would be that she was wasting perfectly good pizza.

When Jo stomps back later, dragging a rumpled, mulleted, flannel-wearing _something_ that she plops in front of the pizza before reclaiming her seat, Dean has to put down his food and figure out what the hell he's looking at here.

"Boyfriend or brother?" he asks, his eyes going from Ellen to Jo. Sam chokes on a bite of salad next to him, and their dad smirks into his tumbler of whisky.

"Neither," Jo bites out with a glare over her mother's chuckles. "Ash helps out around here. He's a genius. Could probably give your brother here a run for his money."

"Seriously?" Dean snorts, gesturing at the guy sitting across from their dad, diving into the pizza with abandon. "I mean, I dig the hair, but this guy's not a genius. He's a Lynyrd Skynyrd roadie."

"Tell 'em where you went to school, Ash," Jo prompts, smug grin on her face.

"MIT," Ash nods, digging out a chicken wing and dunking it in the blue cheese, a look of bliss on his face. "Got bounced for fightin' though. Uptight sons-of-bitches."

"What'd you go for?" Sam asks, and clearly he's interested because the salad fork has been completely abandoned, left to drop down in the bottom of the bowl with a dull 'clunk.'

"Computer sciences," Ash answers through a mouthful of wing, adding his chicken bones to the small pile growing on his plate. "Software engineering, programming, all that jazz. Pocket protectors in that joint never knew what hit 'em. Buncha uptight Jobs fans, too busy drawin' tits on their Newtons and droolin' over their buddies' mp3 collections to see the programming revolution happening around them."

"You're a Linux fan, aren't you?" Sam asks, smirking.

"Hey, man, Ubuntu all the way," Ash grins, and that has Sam out of his chair, dragging Ash off to the laptop at the bar and into the land of computers and science and jokes that go way over Dean's head.

He's not jealous. He's really not, 'cause Sam looks like Christmas just came early and Jo's scowlin' like someone swapped her slice of pizza with a rotten lemon, and that suits Dean just fine.

She's a cute kid, but she's crazy as hell if she ever thought she could win a game of "My Nerd Can Beat Up Your Nerd" with Dean's little brother in the room.


	14. Chapter 14

Hi, guys! We're back from vacation and ready to go! Thanks for waiting so patiently. Hope you enjoy the chapter!

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><p>After lunch, John disappears to parts unknown with his bottle of booze, leaving Dean, Ellen, and Jo to clean up the wings and pizza as Sam and Ash jabber in fluent geek at the bar.<p>

Dean could call his brother over, make him take care of his fair share of pizza boxes and chicken bones, but Sammy doesn't get a chance to let his inner nerd run free very often and, at the very latest, they'll be out of here come daybreak, so it's better to let his little brother get all the time he can with this Ash dude.

After all, Sam's a sociable kid. He makes friends easy, fits right in with the smart, squeaky clean crowd, and if this Ash guy is a little short on the squeaky clean, he more than makes up for it with smarts, if the sheer volume of alien computer speak those two are spouting is any indication. And as a bonus, he already knows about hunting all the creepy, crawly shit that goes bump in the night. He's in good with Ellen, seems like an alright guy, and push comes to shove, he could probably help them out with research sometime, they need it bad enough.

For that, and for the sake of Sammy having a friend he doesn't have to constantly lie to, Dean can clean up a few greasy cardboard boxes and some empty beer bottles.

"Thank you, honey," Ellen says as he helps her get rid of the last of the mess from lunch. "You really didn't have to pitch in like that."

"The hell I didn't," Dean grins, because he does genuinely like this woman. She's smart and sharp and doesn't take shit from anyone, and she's navigating the minefield that is the Winchester family soap opera like a pro, so really, she's good in his book. "You fed me and Sammy, let us make a mess of your morning. It's the least I can do."

"Well that's awful sweet of you, Dean," Ellen smiles, "but I gotta ask, you boys are after this demon, right?"

"Yes, ma'am," Dean nods, not really following her logic here.

"You usin' any protection?" she asks, and the look in her eye, the crossed arms, the no-nonsense line of her mouth? It is all John Winchester catching Dean in the back of the Impala with Amy Mebbersen in the seventh grade.

"Protection like what?" Dean asks carefully, more than a little afraid of the answer.

"John Winchester and his goddamn need-to-know fixation," Ellen grumbles, rolling her eyes and digging a couple of dime-sized amulets strung up like necklaces out of her shirt pocket.

"Anti-Possession charms," she supplies, slapping them into Dean's palm. "Noticed the holy water and Latin class back upstairs, thought I'd ask. You boys got demon troubles? Well, an ounce of prevention's worth a pound of exorcism any day."

"There's only two here," Dean notes, looking from the charms in his hand to Ellen.

"And if I thought John'd take one, I'd give you three," Ellen nods. "He's either kept up with the one he picked up years ago or decided that he's invincible and precaution can go to hell. Either way, I'm not gonna bother diggin' up a third one just for him to throw it back in my face the second he sees it."

"Fair enough," Dean agrees, turning the charms over in his palm, the flaming pentagram etched on them glinting in the dim light of the bar. "Thanks, Ellen."

"Don't mention it, honey." She shakes her head, giving him a nudge in Sam and Ash's direction. "Just go give one of those to your brother, make sure he and Ash don't go markin' up my bar. I got a business to run, and we open in an hour."

By the time Dean gets Sam to quit speaking geek with Ash long enough to pass on the charm along with Ellen's explanation, their dad is stormin' back into the bar, scowl on his face and severely depleted bottle in hand, snapping at Dean and Sam to get their things and get a move on.

"You alright to drive, Dad?" Dean asks under his breath as Sammy's digging the map out from the Impala's glove box.

"M'_fine_," John grumbles. "Now why don't you get that address from your smartass brother so we can get this show on the road?"

"Yes, sir," Dean bites out, digging the bag with the journal out of the back and resting it on the trunk so he can fish out the book, reading off the address in a short, clipped voice.

He knows Sam is at his shoulder, map in hand and on high alert, knows Dad's not gonna like the look in his eye, the barely leashed resentment, the _frustration_, because Sammy worked his _ass_ off, got them this goddamn lead, and now- now-

He just wants to be out of here. To be back in the driver's seat, his baby burning up the dusty Kansas blacktop beneath her tires, Sammy next to him, researching and bitching and refusing to get some sleep, despite the fact that he's been up and going for the better part of two days now.

He wants_ normal_, goddammit, or their version of it at least. And he absolutely_ hates_ that having their dad here, having the family together, just doesn't fucking fit into that anymore.

"That all you need?" Dean demands when their dad's done getting the address and route down.

"What I need is for you to stow this piss-poor new attitude of yours. Stop talkin' back and show your father some goddamn respect," John snaps, steps into Dean's face, and Dean can feel Sam bristle behind him, puts a hand out to keep him back, to keep this from getting any more out of hand.

"And let me tell you," John continues heatedly. "Running off in the middle of the night? Me havin' to chase your asses here, there, and yonder? That shit stops right the hell now, got it? You fall in line and you follow orders or your ass is on the bench, you understand?"

"Yes, sir," Dean answers tightly, teeth clenched, swallowing against so many things he wants to say, can't say, is never gonna say, and he wonders, he wonders _so hard_, how Sammy managed this for all those years.

"Sam?" Dad barks, glaring at Sammy over Dean's shoulder when he remains silent, and it is so, _so_ hard for Dean not to step further in front of his little brother when he hears the hard, sharp tone in their Dad's voice, to plaster himself in front of him like he had in Ellen Harvelle's living room, because nothing good could come from that voice, not when it's their dad using it.

Not when it's aimed at Sammy.

"Yeah?" Sam grits out, every bit as hard and sharp as John.

Dad's eyes go from Dean to Sam to the open laptop bag sitting on the trunk, computer and journals in plain view.

"I'm taking this," he snaps, snatching up the worn, amber journal. "Would have never given it to you two if I knew you were this irresponsible. From here on out, you use _my_ research, go by _my_ rules, follow _my_ lead. You don't like it, you can park your ass here and serve drinks with Ellen Goddamn Harvelle, you understand?"

He looks from Dean to Sam, glaring.

"I get any more backtalk," he threatens, "any more _attitude_, any more _stunts_ like the one you two pulled last night, your asses are out. Am I making myself clear?"

"Yes, sir," Dean agrees.

He has to, because if Sammy is determined to do this, is dead set on hunting down this thing and using Dad's math to do it, they need more time, need to stick with him, and the only way in hell that's happening is if Dean's beside his brother, watching Sammy's back and making sure things between he and Dad don't get too out of hand.

Making sure that little scene in Ellen Harvelle's living room - the one that's gonna be starring in Dean's nightmares for, oh, _ever_? - never happens again, and if it does, that Dean's there to cool things down. To make sure everything works out.

To keep his brother safe.

He can stow his issues for that, can buckle down and just _deal_ if it means getting Sammy the time he needs with Dad's research, if it means getting a lead on the thing that killed Mom, the monster that took Jess from Sammy.

He can deal. He can do this. If it's for Sammy, for Mom and Jess and ending this?

He can do this.

"Sam?" John prompts, waiting expectantly, and Dean's not sure if he's expecting Sam to agree or disagree, but his dad has a look, a quirk in his eye that says there's an answer he's pretty sure he's gonna hear.

Dean knows what it is, and he hates it. He sees the fire in Sam's eyes now, the curl to his lip and the tense line of his shoulders, the clenched fists and the set jaw, and knows research or no, hunt or no, plan or no, this is it.

This is where Sam tells Dad to go fuck himself, to take his high and mighty commands and his controlling bullshit and fuck right off, because they did good work today and they don't need Dad's rules or his shit. This is where Sam tells Dad to leave him the fuck alone, to stop dragging him into a life he hates and a family he can't stand and now Dean's going to have to choose, _again_, between a job he was built to do and a brother he was born to protect.

But this time there won't be any hushed phone calls late at night, long after everyone else has gone to sleep, and there won't be any visits or letters, half mocking, half serious, with pictures and dumb jokes and ironic sign offs that always seem to come off unironically anyway, because Dad doesn't do that shit. He doesn't keep people in his life after he's written them off. He just burns that bridge and fires up the engine and tears off, so if Dean has to choose, is _forced_ to choose –

Except… Except that's not happening?

"Crystal," Sam enunciates, slowly and carefully, every syllable controlled, and Dean can feel the tension in him, strung tight, too tight, just about to snap.

"Good," John snaps. "And it's 'sir.' I'm your father, I deserve some goddamn respect."

There's a long, tense pause.

"Crystal clear," Sam repeats tightly, his jaw set so hard it must ache, "_sir_."

Dean blinks. Watches as John spins on his heel, striding to the truck and climbing in, tossing his old journal aside before cranking up and skidding out of the parking lot, wheels kicking up gravel.

Sam keeps his mouth shut, just grabs his bag and flings himself into the passenger seat, tense, too tense, simmering, his mouth working and his hands fidgeting, worrying this and that, like they want to do something, _anything_, but can't, like he's building up to an outburst but isn't quite there yet.

Dean keeps an eyes on Sammy as they pull out after Dad, watches him try and channel some of his anger into taking notes, scribbling long furious lines of print on a legal pad balanced precariously on his lap, but even with that distraction, it's only a matter of time.

Dean just hopes that when the time comes, Sam doesn't let it get too out of hand. He's gotta let this shit out, and Dean fucking respects that. Better here with him than with Dad, and better sooner than later, but so help him if Sam's bitchfit messes up his car?

Well, if that happens, it's gonna be a long damn ride.

The Stones have just started jamming over the radio, Dean's baby purring as she hits open road when Sammy finally hits his boiling point.

"That selfish, unbalanced, paranoid _bastard_!" Sam bursts out, practically spitting the words, slapping the dash as he spikes his notes into the floorboard.

"Dude," Dean warns, starting. "Watch the car, Sam! Dammit…"

"Not mature enough?" Sam fumes. "Not mature enough my ass. This is from a guy who thinks 'because I said so' is the be-all-end-all of any fucking argument."

"Sam," Dean starts, but Sammy's cutting him off, not having any of it.

"I know you're about to say 'calm down,' Dean! Don't tell me to fucking calm down, not when he– Did you see—?!"

"I saw," Dean nods, and yeah, he should have known better than to try and tell Sammy to calm down like that. You can't try that shit when he gets like this, it only get him more whipped up. "I saw, Sam. I know. But it'll be okay, we've got our notes from Harvelle's journal, we've got Bobby's library, we—"

"God, that's not even what this is _about_, Dean!" Sam interrupts, derailing Dean completely.

"Well if you're not mad about the journal, what the hell are you hittin' my car for then?" Dean demands.

"Of course I'm mad about the journal!" Sam snaps. "It was a dick move and a cheap power play, just him being an ass because he can and because it'll twist the fucking knife, but it's a _book_, Dean. Paper and ink soaked in a hell of a lot of gunpowder and whisky. The second I found a working scanner, I put every page of that dusty son-of-a-bitch on a USB drive and uploaded it to remote storage. It's 2006, dude. Someone in this family had to get with the fucking times."

"So, lemme get this straight," Dean blinks, taking a second. "You're not mad that the book's gone, you're mad that he took it."

"Yeah, I'm mad he took it," Sam nods, scooping his notes from the floorboards and smacking the dust from them. "I'm mad he took it and I'm pissed that he had to give us that fucking speech and put us in our fucking place and make it goddamn clear that he's the fucking boss, and that he had to do that by taking that goddamn journal. What, it wasn't enough we had to swear fucking _fealty_, he has to take the book too? He has to make fucking sure we're blind except for his goddamn research? Really? _Really_?"

Dean nods, lets himself process. It makes sense. Underneath the swearing and rage and resentment, he can get why Sam's upset.

Sam's always been the brains of their operation, has been their first line in research since his pre-teens. Taking away the journal, their one steady source of been-there-done-that, of reliable leads and solid lore, all their contacts and resources and tips, it's hitting at Sammy right where he lives, right in his element.

And Sam's right. It was a punishment, a power-play. A cheap shot, fired off because John's finger was on the trigger and he was pissed.

And because he knew it would hurt, would leave Sam just like this, angry and impotent and forced to rely on John even more for leads, for directions.

It's taking everything Sam's made for himself, the identity he built in the ashes of Palo Alto, and it's tearing it down, sending him back to square one, back to being one of Dad's soldiers, a strongback and a sidearm, a puppet just waiting for someone to pull the strings.

Tearing Sam down just so John doesn't have to deal with the hunter he's become.

"You _uploaded_ Dad's journal?" Dean asks, because _that_ he doesn't understand and because focusing on Sam's weird, geeky info-dumping is a hell of a lot more productive than getting pissed at Dad for shit he can't change. "To where? ?"

"Cloud storage, Dean," Sam laughs, still heated, still bitter, but some of the anger, the tension in him bleeding away as he explains. "Each page is a tagged file. I can search keywords, topic, monster, culture of origin..."

"Yeah, but come on," Dean snorts, going through the possibility in his head. "That must have taken weeks. When the hell did you have the time?"

"You know all the nights you spend hitting on girls in bars?" Sam asks flatly, raising an eyebrow, and instead of anger there's just the barest hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth now, just a little bit of the teasing, smartass little brother sneaking back into his voice.

"Ah," Dean nods, getting it, relaxing as the tension abates, washed away by familiar jibes and the steady, familiar hum of his baby powering over blacktop, the pulse of classic rock on the radio.

"Yeah," Sam laughs.

He sets his notes aside and digs the anti-possession charm out of his pocket, turning it over in his fingers and examining the design in the afternoon sun.

"Hey, Dean," he begins thoughtfully. "You know any good tattoo parlors near here?"

"Clean cut little Sammy, wantin' to get inked up? Never thought I'd see the day," he laughs, leaning over to nudge Sammy's shoulder playfully. "Whatcha thinkin' Sam? Flaming skull? Pinup girl? I could lend you some skin mags, you need a little inspiration."

"Dude," Sam blushes, shaking his head and pushing Dean back to his side of the car. "It's for the hunt. Now that we're on this demon thing..."

He turns the charm over in his fingers, thoughtful.

"I mean, these are great and all, but strings break. Chains snap. Amulets come off, you know?" he muses. "Tattoos don't, and if they were somewhere subtle, somewhere covered? People, demons, whatever, wouldn't even know we had 'em."

"Matching tats? Pretty serious, Sammy. You're not gonna give me your jacket first, maybe a class ring?" Dean teases.

"Come on, man," Sam snorts, shoving Dean's shoulder. "Be serious."

"It's a good idea, Sammy," Dean agrees. It's kinda genius, actually. A talisman everywhere they go? Something secret and _permanent_? Sounds fucking awesome, especially when the monster could be anyone or everyone, anywhere and everywhere, always looking for an opening, a chink in the armor. "But you know Dad's never gonna go for it."

Sam blows out a breath, his face telling Dean that he remembers their dad's "No Identifying Marks of Any Kind" rants from when they were kids, the weight he put on blending in, of being able to pass as anything, anywhere, anytime.

The one time Sam had pointed out Dad's Corps ink during one of those speeches, Sam'd been on double PT _and _weapons cleaning duty for a month.

"I know, I know," he sighs, looks up at Dean. "You think maybe…"

"What?" Dean laughs. "We throw away all of Dad's new rules, sneak out, get inked up in secret? Hope he doesn't notice the big ass bandages and our sudden love for A&D? Sammy, come on. You saw him today. That was after we called him, left a note, and went after a lead on the case. And he _still_ tore across three states, kicked down Ellen's door, held a gun on you, gave me a holy water facial, and read us the fucking riot act."

"Yeah…" Sam admits, little frustrated twist at the edge of his mouth, looking down to where he's toying with the charm between his fingers.

"What do you think he's gonna do if we sneak out in the middle of the night and he finds us in some seedy tattoo joint getting matching occult symbols inked over our hearts?" Dean challenges, raising an eyebrow, because Sam has to understand this, has to get exactly why this would be _the worst_ idea right now, but the kid's every bit as stubborn as he's always been.

"They're _anti-possession_—"

"Yeah, 'cause Dad's gonna stop and whip out his little pocket dictionary, look up which symbol it is before he plugs us both?" Dean asks with a bitter laugh. "Sam, it's a good idea, really, it is, but now's not the time. Not yet."

"But soon?" Sam pushes. "First chance we get?"

"Well, most people woulda gunned for Disneyland," Dean teases, smirking, relieved that Sam'll let this one rest, just a little, just until things calm down. "But yeah, Sammy. You got it. Soon as Dad cools down? You, me, and matchin' anti-demon ink."

"And hey," he adds, shooting Sam a smartass grin. "Maybe you ask nice, I'll have 'em put my initials under yours, so those black eyed sons-of-bitches know just whose little brother they're messin' with."

"You're an idiot," Sam laughs, shoving Dean in the arm again and going back to his notes, but the smile sticks, lingers at the corner of Sammy's mouth as they roll through Kansas, southwest towards Colorado.

Towards Colorado and Elkins and answers about this fucking gun, towards solving this thing and killing this demon and hopefully, fucking _hopefully_, finding a way to work together with Dad without anyone getting their fucking brains blown out.


	15. Chapter 15

Thanks for reading, everyone! If you enjoy the chapter, please take the time to drop us a review! We love reading them!

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><p>Manning would be a hole in the wall if there were any walls around to have holes in them.<p>

As it is, their first best hope for Elkins's last known location is a signpost in the midst of mountain scrub and thick, shadowed foothills, a few houses and strip malls surrounding a really sketchy looking Piggly-Wiggly and, off in the distance, what might be a bar but could just as easily be an abandoned building.

Sam has to admit, if he were an old hunter on the run, this is exactly the type of place he'd pick to go to ground. The entire town can't have more than 1,000 people in it, and Sam'd bet his laptop that any suspicious sniffing around? Any strangers or newcomers asking questions or sticking their nose into things?

Well, word's gonna travel. Fast.

And Elkins? If he's here, he's gonna be listening, wouldn't be half the hunter he was rumored to be if he wasn't. And the second he hears that a pack of strange men have rolled into town, asking questions, trying to find him? He's gonna disappear, drop even further off the map and never look back.

They're gonna have to be careful about this. Very careful.

"We head straight to his place, go in before he has a chance to hear we're in town, we might get to him before the paranoia does, have a chance to actually talk to this guy," Dean says quietly as they drive slowly through Manning's main drag.

"Sounds good," Sam nods, watching the taillights of their dad's truck in front of them, and his brow furrows, because what he's seeing can't be right. "Except Dad's pulling into the motel. Why's he doing that?"

"Guess we're gonna have to find out," Dean answers levelly, pulling the Impala into the cracked, pothole-ridden lot of the Manning Inn and Motor Lodge behind their dad.

Sam's out of the car and up in John's space before the Impala can even pull into a space in the parking lot, door slamming behind him before Dean even has a chance to ease his girl to a complete stop.

"You get a new address for Elkins on the drive, Dad?" Sam demands. "'Cause this sure as hell doesn't look like the place I found for him."

"Get a room and wait here," John answers shortly, completely ignoring Sam's outburst.

Dean's at his elbow now, a hand low in the back of his jacket tugging Sam back, trying to keep things from getting too out of hand, but Sam's not sure how that's gonna happen, 'cause John _keeps talking_.

"I'll see what Elkins has on the gun, be back in a few hours. You two stay in, don't forget the salt lines," their Dad finishes. "We can't afford to get sloppy now."

Sam opens his mouth, has a hundred objections on the tip of his tongue, even as Dean is tugging him back, has a hand on his chest, and he remembers Ellen's living room, their Dad's ultimatum in the Roadhouse parking lot. Remembers that if he loses it now, blows his top and shoots off his mouth and lets loose every bit of anger he's got building for John that their dad'll take off, pack up and disappear, taking their best chance to kill the Demon, to get revenge for Mom and Jess once and for all with him.

Sam snaps his mouth shut, swallows his objections, just leans into Dean's hand on his chest, lets the weight of his brother slow his heartbeat, calm him down little by little.

"You got a problem, Sammy?" John demands, and Sam can hear the almost-taunt in the question, the hard, mean edge in their dad's voice.

"No, sir," Sam grits out, shrugging off Dean's grip to stomp into the office.

For all that Dean can calm him down, help him keep things level, keep things in perspective, he can't work miracles. Can't completely banish that dark, deep urge to just haul off and _deck_ their father, nail him so hard he goes down and to just let loose, to release all of the rage and pain and frustration Sam has built up over his life until the man is just a ruined heap of blood and bone at his feet.

He wants it, sometimes he wants it so bad he can _taste_ it, feels his teeth clench and his fingers tighten, balling into fists as his mind draws up what it would feel like, the sharp, sweet satisfaction of that first punch, the first of many, to break bone and spill blood, payment for every lie, every disappointment, every inch of pain and suffering John dragged Sam and Dean through in the name of his stupid fucking vendetta.

It keeps Sam quiet, most times. Helps him bite his tongue and keep his calm and press, shove all the rage back down deeper, deeper, always deeper.

But other times - darker times - imagining only makes him want it more, _need_ it more, only makes the debt, the _inequality_ of it all shove in on him even harder, weigh on him even more.

And it's times like that that Sam knows deep down that if he were to ever start, if he were ever to _really_ let loose on their Dad in the way he wants to, Dean might not be able to hold him back, might not be able to contain the darkness, the _fury_ in Sam with a quiet word or a gentle hand.

And knowing that, knowing how that would destroy Dean, destroy _them_, all they've built together, is all Sam needs to stay quiet. To unclench his fists and take a deep breath and let his father's bullshit fall away, because he has his brother.

He has his brother, and as long as he has Dean in his corner, has Dean twisted, tangled, tucked in and around and under every inch of Sam's life, he can deal. He can buckle down and keep his cool and handle any crap that John or this fucking demon throws at them.

He can do this, he reminds himself as he storms into the office. He's not some scrawny, pissed off teenager anymore, shut out and alone with nothing but a lifetime of resentment and a crumpled acceptance letter in his hand.

He has his brother now, with him and on his side.

He can do this.

It won't be easy, but he can do this.

He hears Dean come into the office behind him as he asks the plump, bespectacled old lady at the front desk for a room with two queens, can feel him, worried and tense at his back as Sam passes over their most recently scammed credit card.

John's long gone by the time they leave with a room key, the Impala long, black figure standing alone in the hotel parking lot, and Dean keeps in the background, silent as Sam digs his bags from the back.

"I'm not gonna snap and screw this up, Dean, so you can stop hovering already," Sam sighs, slamming the door and shooting his brother a look.

"S'not what I'm worried about," Dean answers levelly, picking up his own bags and locking up the Impala, then adds quietly, as they cross the parking lot: "You okay, Sammy?"

"Yeah, fine," Sam grumbles, shifting his laptop bag to unlock the door, because he might not be about to lay into Dad with both fists and lifetime's worth of anger, but that doesn't mean that John's stealing his research and swanning off to interview Elkins alone has him fucking _giddy_. "So he's just _dumping _us here like we're little kids. I'm fine. I don't care. Why would I care?"

He slings his bag down onto the bed furthest from the door.

"It's not like he wouldn't even _have_ this fucking lead if it weren't for us, you know?" he rants. "It's not like before we came along, he was just squinting at newspapers in a crazy cabin in the woods waiting for a plan to fall into his lap! Why would I not be okay with this, Dean? Can you think of any reason at all I would be _not okay _with this situation?"

"Okay, fair," Dean nods, putting his bag next to Sam's.

Sam gets that his brother's trying, he does, but he just can't let go of the anger, the _frustration _at being ditched like a twelve year old in some seedy dive while Dad goes and makes a mess of the leads _Sam_ found, the research _Sam_ did.

And it _must_ be bothering Dean, it _must_, but he's not making an issue of it, always the good soldier, the good son, always the one to follow orders, to just buckle down and bear with it. Sam wishes he were like that, wishes he could just put up with Dad's crap the way Dean can, but he just gets so _angry_, so _pissed off_ and usually he can control it, can squash it down and do the work and be okay, but Dad just makes Sam so _furious_…

"Sammy—" Dean begins, and Sam cuts him off, just _can't_, not right now, not now that he's gotten himself worked up to that hot, angry place inside him _again_.

"You really don't want to hear what I have to say about this right now, Dean," he snaps. "You _really_ don't."

"Okay, seein' as I was gonna ask if you wanted burgers or Chinese, I'm not sure that's true," Dean answers easily, flipping through the Yellow Pages from the motel nightstand. "But if you're dead set on stayin' quiet, Chinese it is then."

"Dean," Sam glares at him, because that is _not _what this is about, and his brother knows it.

"We knew this was comin', Sammy." Dean begins, serious this time, letting the battered phone book fall closed on the bed beside him. "It's just how the old man operates. The same go here, go there, need-to-know shtick he's always brought to the table, and I know it's a pain, I _do_, but it's for the case."

"I know it's for the case," Sam grumbles, dropping next to Dean on the bed and not caring that he sounds like a tired, whiny little kid. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."

"No kidding," Dean laughs, elbowing Sam in the ribs. "Thought you were gonna knock Dad into next week for a second there, Sammy."

"I wanted to," Sam admits, quietly. "I _really_ wanted to."

He sighs, leaning into his brother.

"What if he screws it up, Dean?" Sam asks, deflating, relaxing into his brother's warmth at his side. "Doesn't ask the right questions? Misses a lead? What if he spooks Elkins, and we never find this gun? Never take out this thing, all because he's too much of a stubborn asshole to admit that—"

"Sammy," Dean interrupts. "I'm not sayin' he's in the right here…"

Sam's head snaps around with a glare, and Dean holds up his hands, wards off Sam's angry tirade with the universal gesture for "Let Me Fucking Explain Before You Hulk Out and Rip My Head Off, Dude."

"I'm not!" he chuckles, because apparently Sam being justifiably pissed that Dean's gone back to taking Dad's side in everything is _hilarious_. "But you gotta admit, a guy as paranoid as Elkins? Dad showin' up alone will look a lot better than him comin' in outta the blue with a couple of younger, stronger hunters as backup for settlin' whatever bad blood's between them, right?"

"Yeah," Sam grumbles after a long moment, because, okay, Dean has a point. Doesn't mean he has to be happy about it, but yeah, _maybe_, if you look at it that way, this would kind of sort of make something that _resembles_ sense

"Okay," Dean nods, apparently satisfied with Sam's grudging concession. "I know you and Dad have your problems, Sammy. And lately he's been…"

Dean trails off, and Sam watches as his face goes through a handful of expressions, from lost to frustrated to confused to tight and angry, but apparently there aren't words in Dean, not yet, to describe John's shift in behavior towards his sons over the past few days.

Sam can think of a few.

"Well," Dean picks up again, "point is, if he can do one thing? It's hunt. Let's let him go off and do the legwork himself for once, alright? He wants to do all the grunt work while we sit on our asses? _Great_. I say we let him. It'll keep his ornery ass outta our hair while we kick back, huh?"

Dean caps it off by ruffling his hair, and Sam can't help but grin, shove his brother and call him an idiot. It helps, lets Sam worry a little less about Elkins and the hunt and more about keeping Dean from ordering every skin flick he can find on the staticky motel pay-per-view.

Once Sam's thoroughly thwarted his brother's mission to fill the motel room with beauties of the busty and Asian variety, Dean's focus returns to finding them dinner, and he manages to hunt down the only Chinese restaurant in the area that'll deliver to Manning.

A few orders of kung pao chicken and spring rolls later, and Sam and Dean are sprawled across the bed, critiquing the Ghostbusters' hunting technique and lazily fighting over who gets the extra fortune cookie when the door rattles with quick, angry knocking.

Dean's up, gun out and aimed as Sam cocks the shotgun by the bed, when whoever's trying to break their door down gets tired of banging.

"Boys, open up!" John demands from the other side of the battered wood.

"Did you see Elkins? Does he have anything on the gun?" Sam asks as Dean lets their father into the room, guns stowed and safetied.

"No," John answers shortly, striding over the salt line and past his sons without a second glance.

"'No, you didn't see him' or 'no, he didn't know anything?'" Dean asks as he locking the door and checking the salt in John's wake.

John ignores the question, throws himself on the bed closest to the door, and digs a battered flask from one jacket pocket before taking a swig.

"Well?" Sam demands, coming to stand at the foot of the bed.

John shoots him a glare over the body of the flask.

"He didn't give me anything," John snaps. "Now, it's been a long goddamn day. You two wanna get off my ass for a goddamn minute and let me get some rest?"

"What did he say, specifically?" Sam presses, ignoring the warning look Dean shoots him from where he's fixing salt lines, because this is _important_, could be the difference between a lead and days, weeks, _months_ of nothing, of cooling their heels, hoping another lead like this falls into their laps.

"He said that he didn't know shit about the gun and that if I didn't get off his goddamn porch, he'd pump my ass full of lead," John snarls, standing, getting up in Sam's space. "That specific enough for ya, Sammy?"

"So that's it?" Sam demands, throwing his arms wide, and suddenly Dean's at his shoulder again, a stubborn, protective shadow. "Fuck you very much, we're outta here by checkout, back to square one?!"

"I remember tellin' you sometin' pretty specific about that piss-poor attitude of yours, Sammy," Dad growls.

Sam steps into it, gets right back into his face, because restraint? Caution? That was then. That was for when they had a direction, were going somewhere, doing something, for when John hadn't just shot down Sam's best lead on getting revenge for Mom, for Jess.

This? This is now.

"It's. _Sam_," he enunciates, glaring at John for all he's worth, getting ready to let loose, to let his paranoid, stubborn, controlling bastard of a father have it when Dean gets in front of him, pushing and pulling and dragging Sam any way he can.

"Alright, Sam, come on," Dean grumbles, hustling Sam towards the door. "Let's get some air."

"Go ahead, run out. Only goddamn thing you're good for," John mutters into his flask, and Sam snaps, lunges at John, would be sinking his fists into any part of his father he can reach, except Dean is there, getting a shoulder underneath him and hauling him back, out, across the parking lot and away from the hunt and the room and Dad with a tight, determined, strength.

"I'm fine!" Sam snaps, shoving off his brother's grip after they've cleared the line of motel rooms, reached the Impala where she's parked alone in the dim lot. "I said I'm_ fine_!"

Sam paces the length of the car for a few minutes, Dean a silent sentinel by the fender, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jacket against the cold.

After the worst of the rage has drained away, after Sam is left tired and frustrated and disappointed, he walks back to where Dean's waiting, as quiet and watchful as ever, and lets himself into the car, practically flinging himself into the passenger seat.

Dean doesn't say anything, just walks quietly around the car, opens the driver's side door, and lets himself in.

"I'm sorry," he mutters quietly, elbow on the window to support his head, fingers rubbing at his temple to try and sooth the thick, insistent pounding that's taken root there.

"Don't have to apologize, Sammy," Dean mutters into the quiet, his fingers worrying the keys to the Impala on their ring. "You tried."

"I couldn't just leave it," Sam explains, presses, because Dean has to understand, he has to. "And he was just..."

"I get it, Sammy," Dean interrupts, and his voice is a little louder, a little sharper, boxed in by the familiar cab of the Impala, no rush of the wind outside or rumble of his girl's engine to talk over. "You and Dad push each other's buttons. Always have. This was always gonna happen, problem cropped up with the hunt."

There's an emptiness in Dean's voice, a hopelessness that shakes Sam, has him turning to his brother in the front seat, reaching out.

"But you didn't want it to," Sam protests, tugging at Dean's elbow, getting him to turn, to face him. "You never wanted it to be like this, and I'm sorry. I wish it could be different. That…"

"What, Sammy?"

"I wish I could just get along with him like you want me to," Sam sighs, shoving a hand through his hair, "but I can't just forget, Dean. I can't just look at him and not see all the shit he's done to you, to _us_, and not get pissed off. I _can't_! And I've been trying, Dean, I have! For you and the case and all this crap, but it never _works_, and I know, I _know_ I'm making things worse by letting him push my buttons all the time, but I can't- he—"

"Sammy, it's okay," Dean interrupts, a hand on Sam's shoulder, at the edge of his collar, fingers warm and rough on his collarbone, his neck. "So you two don't get along. I'm not blamin' you here, promise."

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry anyway."

Sam leans into his brother's hand, enjoying the way Dean's letting his fingers smooth through the hair at the nape of his neck.

"Gotta be annoying, pulling us apart every five minutes," he mumbles, slumping in the passenger seat and taking a deep breath, letting his eyes fall shut to just enjoy the quiet, the gentle, mind-numbing pressure of Dean's fingers in his hair.

"Could be worse," Dean offers softly, and Sam can't help but snort, tilt his head to give Dean a better angle.

"Yeah, he could go back to pullin' a gun on me," he quips, only to feel Dean's fingers freeze against his neck, his arm falling back and away.

Sam sits up, looks over to his brother, and Dean's face is tight, drawn, his hands worrying the keys between his fingers again, and Sam knows, _knows_ that his brother's eyes aren't sticking to the dash, they aren't glued to the speedometer or the odometer or any other gauge on there.

They're fixed on the ignition, his keys in hand, like he wants to take off. To get them the hell out of there at just at the thought, the _memory_ of standing down John with a weapon prepped and ready and pointed at Sam.

"Dean," Sam starts, and apparently that's enough, enough to break the dam in his brother's head, enough to open the flood gates and let out the thoughts that have kept Dean quiet and tense, have put a shadow in his grins and an extra line of tension in his shoulders ever since Nebraska, ever since Ellen and Jo and John, staring down the barrel of a .45 aimed right between Sam's eyes.

"Sammy, if you'd have been possessed," Dean starts slowly, grave and reluctant and serious, "that thing wouldn't have done a lick of good, and he _knows_ that. Wouldn't have forgotten for a _second_. But he did it anyway, and the way he looked at you..."

Dean breaks off, takes a deep breath, his eyes screwed shut.

"And now it's like I'm watching," his brother continues, "_waiting_, every second that he's in the room, for him to draw on you again, Sammy. I'm on high alert like it's a hunt, like there's something _dangerous_ in the room with us, and I _hate_ it because it's _Dad_ and it doesn't make any _sense_ and it's driving me _nuts_ but—"

"Dean," Sam breaks in, shifting towards Dean in the front seat, but his brother keeps going, can't seem to stop, now. And it's _killing_ Sam because all Dean ever needed was Dad, and all he ever believed in was Dad, and now he doesn't even have that and it's all Sam's fault.

"But we still need him for the case, right Sammy?" Dean sighs, slow and resigned, looking up at Sam from the driver's seat. "Unless you've had any sudden insight into his buckets of crazy research? His weird-ass demon tracking network?"

"I need more time," Sam admits, hanging his head and hating himself for what he's done, for what his choice to go after Ellen and this lead has broken between Dean and their father.

"Then we stick with it, stick with him," Dean nods grimly, face set. "Not because we want to, not because he's tellin' us to, but because we have to."

"Dean, I'm so sorry," Sam apologizes, thoroughly miserable now that he understands what's been going on in Dean's head since their dad drew on him in Ellen's living room.

"What? Why?" Dean asks, confused until he sees Sam's face, his head hung and face painted with self-loathing.

"Hey, no!" Dean snaps, shifting forward to get a hand on Sam's shoulder, to force him to look up, to meet his brother's eyes. "Dad lets a hunt freak him out, starts drawin' on anything that breathes, it is not your fault. You understand me, Sam? Do you get that?"

"Dean," Sam protests with a frown, but protests aren't what his brother's interested in hearing, apparently, because he's cutting Sam off with a sharp shake of his head.

"No, you said it yourself," Dean reminds him. "So this bender he's goin' for paranoid instead of angry. That makes him dangerous and me depressing as fuck, but neither of those things are your fault, you got it?"

Sam nods, wishes that he'd just kept his damn mouth shut, let the quiet of the Impala and the soft pressure of his brother's fingers in his hair tug him into some much needed sleep.

God, he's so _tired_ of all this shit.

"You gonna be alright?" Dean asks, hands dropping from Sam's shoulders.

"Yeah," he nods, trying not to miss the contact. "Fine. Great."

"Good. You ready to head back in?" Dean asks, jerking his head towards the motel room.

"About that…" Sam hedges, not quite meeting Dean's eye, and his brother knows him too well, because he's got a disapproving glare on his face like never before.

"Sammy."

"We need to go back to Elkins, Dean," Sam insists, "and we need to make sure Dad doesn't rabbit, and we can't do both at the same time."

"Sam, you're not going after some crazy old—" Dean refuses quickly, but Sam's ready, counterargument lined up and waiting.

"What, are _you_ gonna do it? Leave Dad and I alone here?" he demands.

It might be cheating, but Sam's thought about this. There's no other way to make it work, and Dean needs to understand that. He has to go interview Elkins, just like Dean has to be alone with Dad, making sure their first best fallback plan doesn't disappear off to who knows where and take his precious goddamn research with him.

Judging by the sour, stubborn look on Dean's face, he likes this plan even less than Sam, which is saying something considering "Leave Dean Alone with Asshole Father" ranks right up there on Sam's list of fun things to do with "Have ANOTHER Painful and Terrifying Vision" and "Get Badtouched By Two-Faced Evil Co-ed.

"I'll be fine, Dean. Promise," Sam insists, because he will, _really_.

_This_ he can do. _This_ is easy. Staying here? Putting up with Dad's crazy? That's the real challenge.

"Call me before you go in," Dean demands shortly, mouth tight as he throws the keys into Sam's lap. "And fucking _during_. And after."

"I will," Sam promises, trying not to smile at his brother pouting in the front seat like an armed, leather-clad toddler.

"Gonna get fucking grey hairs at this rate," Dean grumbles as Sam digs the map out of the glove compartment, double checks the address in their journal.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sam apologizes again, fingers tracing across the faint blue and red lines on the paper. "If we knew Elkins wouldn't skip town..."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean bitches, running a hand over the steering wheel. "Watch her on the switchbacks, alright? My baby comes back missin' paint or short a headlight, I'm takin' it outta your ass, you hear me?"

"Yes, sir," Sam smirks, giving Dean a mock salute as he tucks the journal back in his jacket pocket.

"And don't go screwing with my radio stations!" his brother continues, apparently going through a mental checklist of everything that could possibly go wrong as Sam drives to the house of a seventy year old shut-in. "Stick to The Sisterhood of the fucking Traveling Pants or some shit!"

"But Dean, I don't want you to lose your place!" Sam grins cheekily at his brother in the dim.

"Fuck you," Dean snorts, snagging the door handle, but before he can open it, Sam slides over, catches Dean's hand over the latch, leaving them close, closer than usual, crammed together in the driver's seat of the only home they've ever known outside of each other.

"Hey, you be careful, too," Sam demands, all joking aside as he stares at Dean, the angle shoving their hips and shoulders tight together in the front seat.

"Yeah," Dean rolls his eyes. "Babysitting Dad. Real risky detail. Better keep sharp, watch my back."

"I'm serious, Dean!" Sam snaps, not giving an inch. "Jesus Christ, the last time I left you alone with the man…."

And he tries, really, he does, but just like Dean can't help but get all guilty and depressed when he sees the scar on Sam's arm, Sam can't ever keep his eyes from darting to Dean's collar, his wrists, the perfect, horrifying circles that mar his thighs beneath the cotton and denim, whenever he's reminded of what trusting John Winchester with his brother's life means.

No, his dad had his chance.

He had his chance, and Dean spent a week and a half being eaten alive, thinking _no one_ was coming for him, that he didn't _deserve_ to have anyone come for him, that he was going to die alone and that no one would even _care. _John has that on his head, will never _not_ have that on his head, as far as Sam's concerned.

"This _again_?" Dean scoffs, and that has Sam's hand snapping from the door handle to the collar of his brother's jacket.

"Yes,_ this again_," Sam presses. "You said it yourself, Dean, he's been worse than usual! Paranoid and violent and if something happened to you— If I wasn't there—"

"Hey, hey," Dean interrupts, his hands coming up to Sam's shoulder, his elbow, steadying and reassuring as always, making slow, comforting passes up and down Sam's arms. "I'm gonna be fine, Sammy. Everything's gonna be fine."

"I just don't like it, that's all," Sam grumbles, glaring as he drops his grip on Dean's collar, sets the leather and layers of plaid and soft cotton back to rights.

"Yeah, well that's cause you're a big girl," Dean teases, ruffling Sam's hair. "Always gotta have your panties in a twist over somethin'."

"And you're in my seat, jerk," Sam says, reaching around Dean to unlatch the door and nudging him over with his other hand.

"Remember to bring her back with a full tank, bitch," Dean tosses back, grinning and slipping out of the front seat in one fluid motion.

As he pulls out, Sam watches Dean stride back into the motel room in the rearview, hands shoved in his pockets, collar flipped high against the cold, and can't help but think that no matter how paranoid or dangerous Elkins may be, no matter how bad this interview goes, Dean's the one he's gonna be worried about.


	16. Chapter 16

Hello, everyone! I'm assuming you're all still emotionally devastated from the season finale? (Don't tell us what happened! We haven't gotten to watch it yet!) Well, this chapter should be balm on your wounds. If you find alcoholic fathers, terrible revelations, and layer upon layer of deception comforting, that is...

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><p>"The fuck'd your pain in the ass brother get to?" John growls the second Dean walks back into the motel room, careful to step over the salt lines without breaking them.<p>

"Went to cool his head," Dean mutters, his eyes flicking to his father, hunched over the wobbly motel table, incomprehensible notes spread out in front of him and liquor bottle firmly in hand. "He'll be back before we pull out in the mornin'."

"Fuckin' peachy," John mutters, taking a swig and scribbling something on the back of an envelope before tossing it into one of the many piles on the desk.

"Yeah," Dean sighs, looking around at the stained wallpaper, the ratty carpets, the bed with his and Sam's bags on it standing large and empty on the far side of the room, and John, angry and bitter, with bottles and research lined up at his elbow like he's goin' for the gold in functioning alcoholism.

Yeah, this isn't gonna be fun for anyone.

"You need the shower?" Dean asks, turning back to his Dad, who just shakes his head without looking up and pours himself another drink.

There's no way in hell Sam's reached Elkins' place in the last five minutes, but as Dean walks into the bathroom, he flips open his cell anyway, checks the battery and the signal, makes sure the thing's not on vibrate, before he shucks his shirt and slaps on the shower.

He brushes his teeth as the water's heating up, catching sight in the cracked, spotty bathroom mirror of the scars that gave Sammy such a problem earlier.

Honestly, they're not _that_ bad. Not even that noticeable, way he dresses.

But noticing does happen from time to time. Bobby hadn't been happy first time he'd seen 'em, but the old hunter had just clapped Dean on the shoulder, then Sam, and gone right back to what he was doin'. Like you do.

Other people – civilians – react different once they realize whatever it is they think they're lookin' at.

There'd been a chick in a bar in Albuquerque who'd been eatin' out of Dean's hand, hangin' on his stories of training attack dogs for the FBI. A trucker just outside of Seattle who'd side-eyed him, scooted down the counter muttering about junkie freaks. A really, really weird Anne Rice fan in a library outside of Des Moines who'd seen the scars peekin' out of Dean's collar as he browsed the audiobooks and almost dropped his stack of fantasy paperbacks, wouldn't stop pesterin' him for his number until Dean threatened to rip out his ribcage and wear it as a hat.

The kid had kept lurking, pretending to read a battered copy of _Woman's Day_ and peeking at Dean until he'd had enough, faked a stretch big and loud enough to flash his pistol at the kid and summon Sammy from the nonfiction section, who'd immediately sussed out what was goin' on and hustled them out, his book completely forgotten.

The scars are annoying, at most. They make sex with the lights on a bitch and getting close to anyone not Sam in general a risk, a chance to be noticed, remembered. For all that Dean shot down Sammy's tat idea with Dad's old "No ifs, ands, or inks of any kind" rule, they've got enough identifying marks between them to make an ID easy, you roll their shirtsleeves up.

It's annoying, but it kinda fits. Sam and him, both covering up the past, keeping what they've gone through together between them, just beneath the surface.

And if hookups have been a bitch? Relegated to the few and far between since he and Sammy hit the road together?

Well, Dean doesn't mind.

It's hard to complain about your bed bein' empty when there's six feet, four inches of little brother spilling out over every inch of it more nights than not, stealing the covers and digging his nose into your shoulder like a little kid, sleepy and messy and _safe _as he tangles them together in the sheets, everything Dean ever wanted out of life.

Dean checks his phone again before he gets in the shower, makes sure it's still got battery, signal, double checks that he can reach the thing if Sammy calls.

But by the time he finishes showering, is shrugging into a t-shirt and scrubbing at his hair with a towel, there still hasn't been a call from Sam. As he's flipping his cell open for what seems like the hundredth time to check that the damn thing still works, Dad speaks up from across the room.

"We need to talk, son," John gravels, and Dean's eyes flick reflexively to the bottle on the table, gauging how much his dad's had, how much is left, how much John'd need to go from his normal levels of functioning alcoholism to somewhere potentially dangerous.

Dean nods and crosses the room, tries to ignore the heavy, foreboding feeling in his stomach, fights down the urge to dig out his phone again to dial Sam and see what the hell's taking him so long with Elkins.

"You notice anything different about your brother these past few months?" John starts, hands tracing the length of the pen on the table in front of him. "He seem… _strange_ to you? Off at all?"

Oh god.

There's no way. No way Dad knows about the psychic kids, the dreams, the visions. No. Way.

He and Sam haven't told a soul. Not even _Bobby_ knows that for Sam, and any other kids out there like Sam, nightmares are real, can follow you from dreams to living color, played and replayed for weeks on end before coming true, before completely wrecking your world. That sometimes the future comes at you like a freight train, hits you between the eyes and plays your worst nightmares in front of you in surround sound, and that sometimes, terrible times, you can Jedi mind-trick your way into a locked door murder, a _Poltergeist_ nightmare of guns with triggers that pull by themselves and Sam, freaked-out and shaking and glued to Dean's side for days, _weeks_ after.

"Sammy's always been a little off, Dad," Dean tries to joke.

It falls flat, doesn't spark anything but a hard, serious glare from his dad.

"I don't know," Dean tries again, sitting on the edge of the bed near the door and scrubbing a hand through his still shower-damp hair, trying to figure out how to play this, how to suss out how much dad knows - or thinks he knows - and how much of it he's figured out applies to Sam. "He's been Sammy, same as always. Too tall, too smart, books-are-my-best-friends Sammy. Why?"

John takes a deep breath followed by a long pull of whisky and answers slowly, reluctantly.

"This demon's got a pattern, Dean," he starts. "Where it goes, omens follow, but its movements aren't random, haven't been for a long time as far as I can tell. It's always _families_. It always pops up where there are families with babies, _infants_, either on the way or just born. The omens crop up, follow a family for a little, then vanish, sometimes on their own, sometimes right after a fire. A fire—"

"In the nursery on the night of the kid's sixth month birthday," Dean finishes, knowing this part of the story well, _hating_ that this confirms what he and Sam had pretty much known for a while now: that their mom's death and Sammy's visions are all twisted and tied up together in a huge knot of high octane nightmare fuel.

"Not always," John shakes his head. "I've found omens in Arizona, Montana, Virginia, all around families with infants either just born or a few months old, but no fires of any kind anywhere. They happen sometimes. I've found 'em. Seen 'em. Been too late to stop 'em. But they're the _exception_, not the rule."

"What's it doing?" Dean demands hotly. "What's it want? Why the kids?"

_Why Sam?_

"I didn't know for a long time," John mutters, taking a pull of the whisky. "Still don't know everything, but a while back I got a hold of one of the Demon's grunts. Got some information out of 'im."

"What?" Dean growls, because this is Sammy, _his Sammy_, and he doesn't have time for his dad's dramatic fucking storytelling right now.

"There wasn't much left of it at that point," John gravels, "but the bastard did say one thing before I sent his ass back to Hell. Just one: '_It's all about the blood_.'"

"Blood?" Dean repeats faintly.

Everything dawns on him all at once. Dad's freak-out and interrogation when he saw their scars, heard about the transfusion. His paranoid eye on Sam all the time, watching, analyzing, blaming him for anything and everything. Sammy's every move being watched, catalogued, criticized, held up against the past and the present and the future, every move measured and scrutinized, not because Dad was worried, but because he was looking for_ evidence_.

And _worse_, further back, all the way back to Louisiana when Dean was dying, had been sure he was dead, just lucky enough to see Sammy one last time before he went, and then woke up a few pints of Sam Positive richer and feeling like he could go toe to toe with the champ and walk away, ready and raring to go only to crash a little more than a day later, every bit as drained and achy as he should have felt from day one.

"There's something in Sam's _blood_," Dean breathes, and he hopes to god it sounds enough like a question for Dad. That it doesn't sound like Dean knows more than he's letting on, that there are things about Sammy that Dad doesn't know, can't know, can never, _ever_ know.

God, the _dream_s? The _visions_? _This_ is why?

""S what they're sayin'," John nods, taking another swig of whisky, and Dean really can't fucking blame him, because his little brother has _demon blood_ in him now? Has since he was, what, six months old? _Younger_? "And there's more."

Of fucking course there is.

"These kids," Dad continues. "These kids targeted by the Demon? They're Sammy's age now, just about all of them, and Dean…"

"What, Dad?" Dean demands, because this is _Sammy_ and Dad can't stop now, can't fucking hold out on him, can't pull out that old need-to-know-shit, not this time.

"They've got abilities. Powers," John finishes. "Some of 'em are just sensitive, can just _know_ things, but others… they're dangerous, Dean. Deadly."

Dean's quiet, elbows braced on his knees, waiting. Waiting because he knows where Dad is going with this, and he can't afford, for his and Sam's sake, to show his hand now.

"Sammy gotten any stronger, or does he still just get feelings?" John asks, and the accusation is there in his father's voice, the disapproval at Dean's lie of omission, drawn out and brought to light, and he can go _fuck _himself.

Because yeah, Dean didn't tell Dad that Sam had a Miss Cleo moment in Lawrence, but Dad didn't tell Dean that he had intel on Sam being ROSEMARY'S FUCKING BABY, so the way he figures it, they're just about even on this one.

"No, it's still just feelings," Dean lies through his teeth with his face as straight as a board, blank and hard and cold and distant as stone, because _how long_? How long has Dad been working on this? Been chasing after a trail that leads to Sam with a demon's blood in his veins, to Dean's little brother being a ticking time bomb, a psychic WMD in the passenger seat next to him?

How long has Dad known all this shit and let Sam sweat it out halfway across the country, scared and in the dark as the visions tore his head up from the inside?

"Nothing new," Dean adds on that thought, on the image of Sam scared and shaking in Illinois, a fresh vision crumpling him to the ground, murder after murder being shoved into his head. "Not since Lawrence."

"We need to watch him," John grumble after a long swig. "Could happen any time now."

"Why?" Dean gets out, strangled and overwhelmed and Sam still hasn't called him, dammit, all this shit is going down and his little brother is still off in the wind, nowhere to be found. "What's it all for?"

"I said back in Chicago I didn't know their endgame," John gravels, "and I don't, not enough of it at least. But word is, these kids? They're meant for somethin'."

John takes another long pull from the bottle, meets Dean's eye.

"Word is, they're supposed to be the start of some sort of army."

"Whose army?" Dean demands, shooting up from the bed, because this is too much, too much all at once and—

And John's look is all the answer Dean needs, all the answer he requires to put two and two together.

"They're _soldiers_ for the Demon?" Dean realizes. "So what, Sammy's some freak demon sleeper cell, gonna murder us all in our sleep the second that bastard snaps his fingers?"

"He could be. Could be Sam one day, a demon the next. It could happen slow, or it could have happened years ago, before any of this ever started."

"Dad…" Dean looks up, horrified, shakes his head, because no, _no_. That can't— there's no way—

"We don't have any way of knowing, Dean," John mutters. "How much of Sam is _Sam_ and how much is a thing _pretending_ to be Sam. If Sam died with your mother in that fire. If there was ever a Sam at all."

No.

No. **No**. **No.**

It's all Dean's mind can process, can work through, because this is _Sam_ they're talking about, and if something like that could happen someday, _is_ happening, _already_ happened, maybe even _years_ ago…

_No._

Dean would _know_, would _have _to know. Couldn't _not_ know, not with _Sammy_, not with his little brother.

Not him. Not _ever_.

Sam took his first steps towards Dean. Dean's name was the first word Sam ever spoke in this life. Dean's hand was the first, the _only_ one Sam would trust to walk him across the street. Dean's bed the only place safe enough to scare away the nightmares when they were kids.

And Sam…

Sammy's always been Dean's responsibility, his one job, the one thing he's been responsible for above all else. Sam's always been the one thing Dean could trust, could rely on to be there, to be what he needed. Even when Sammy _wasn't_ there, was gone for two awful, silent years, when push came to shove, when Dean had no one else in his corner, Sam was there, busting through in the nick of time to save his bacon, to drag Dean back from the brink with everything he had in him.

To saw off the head of that damn vampire with nothing but a shovel and his own rage. The same rage that's been there under the surface, that had Sam spiking lamps in the hotel room while Dean was recuperating, that had him boiling over, pulling that trigger in Rockford, lunging at Dad and snapping at Dean and angry, angry, _so angry_ these days, all the time…

But at the same time, this is the Sam whose voice was in Dean's ear in Louisiana, pulling him from the cage and begging him to stay awake, to stay with him just a little longer, his hands, his voice, his _brother _the only solid, real thing in the unsteady, fading, distant world. Sam who went to pieces after the Rawhead, who's pushed himself to the edge again and again to save Dean, to be there for Dean, and he shouldn't have to, should never have had to, but he _did_. He did _over_ and _over_ again, and after Jessica—

God, this is Sam who loved Jessica. Who built the best life he could with that sweet, soft girl and then watched her burn right in front of his eyes. This is Sam who was holding on by a thread, less than that, after she was gone, who held on to Dean and hunting and the life just so he'd have something to pull himself up by.

This is Sam who, not an hour and a half ago, was lolling his head back on the passenger seat, blissed out with Dean's fingers in his hair like a lazy puppy.

"This is why you ran off. Why you freaked out when we left for Ellen's," Dean realizes suddenly. "You thought, what? Sam had gone Vader, dragged me along with him? Was off to start recruiting for Demon ROTC?"

"I couldn't take that chance, Dean," John defends. "I needed to know—"

"To know what?" Dean demands. "If I'm drinkin' the Kool-Aid, too? If I got a hit of Special Sauce and now I'm gonna go black eyes any second?"

"You're fine," John grumbles.

"How do you know _any_ of this if we don't have a way of knowing, Dad?" Dean presses. "If you can't trust Sammy, how do you know you can trust me?"

"If you were in on any of this, you'd do a damn sight better job of it," John bites. "You need to know now so you can still fight it. At least this way you can help me keep an eye on Sam."

"Yeah," Dean nods, mouth tight. "That was always my job growin' up, right? Watch out for Sammy? Take care of my little brother?"

John nods, takes another swig of whisky.

"Tell me, Dad," Dean demands. "You want me to take care of Sammy or_ take care_ _of_ Sammy?"

"What are you askin', son?" John grits out.

"What's your plan here?" Dean exclaims. "Wait till Sam sneezes wrong, orders a burger instead of some girly salad? What happens then? You gonna plug him right there or give him a chance to defend himself before you blow him away 'cause he _might_ have powers that _might_ be dangerous _someday_?"

"My plan is to keep hunting this thing," John fires back. "My plan is to get the demon that killed your mother, and if somewhere along the way we can figure out how to save Sam, we do that."

He sighs, draining the bottle at his elbow and going back to his notes.

"In the meantime, I'm gonna need you to keep an eye on him, report back to me."

Dean nods, recognizing the dismissal for what it is, and storms back into the bathroom, scrubs cold water over his face and hopes that maybe, just _maybe_ he can wake himself up from this goddamn nightmare.

God, Sammy with demon blood in him? Dad recruiting Dean to check for triple sixes on the kid's skull?

Dean's life's never been exactly_ normal_, but seriously, _what the hell_?

And Sam _still_ hasn't called. Which, in light of the new and terrifying shit Dean's learned tonight, is a whole new level of not good.

Dean flips open his phone, sees the missed texts on the screen, and clicks over to see three messages from Sam.

_9:58 pm - Elkins place. _

_10: 04 pm - just talking. everything OK._

_10: 43 pm - heading back. 20 min out. gotta talk._

More talking. Great. If Sam needs to tell Dean that their Dad is secretly a werewolf spy or a sleeper cell for ghost KGB or some shit, Dean is _out_.

Dean takes a deep breath, wishes hard for a bottle of his own to sort this shit out at the bottom of, and starts up a game of Snake on his phone to pass the time.

Half an hour later, Dean's beaten his high score three times and is on the way to a fourth when a voice in the doorway breaks his concentration.

"Dude, how long have you been in here?" Sam asks, skeptical look on his face as he takes in Dean, phone in hand, perched on the edge of the bathtub in the dim light of the motel's single florescent bulb.

Before Dean realizes it, before he can analyze it or overthink it or think at all, he's up, knees protesting and ass killing him, and across the cracked, stained tiles, wrapping his arms around his big, stupid little brother and just holding _tight_, needing to feel to _confirm_, to _believe_ that this is_ real_ and this is _him_ and Dad is _wrong_, couldn't be _more_ wrong. And Sam is _Sam_, gooey and feelings-y as ever, because after a split-second's surprise he's hugging Dean right back with long, solid arms and burying his nose, still cold from the chilly mountain air, into Dean's neck, relaxing and inhaling and smiling into Dean's collarbone, and he can _feel_ it, can feel how much Sam enjoys the embrace, feel his lips quirk into a happy, relieved grin against his skin as he leans into it, gives it everything he's got, and that's all Dean needs.

It's all he needs, and if that means he's drinking the Kool-Aid, is lost, gone, too far behind his brother, so firmly entrenched on Sam's side that he's lost all sight of everything else, then that's just the way it is, because this? His big, dumb genius brother wrapped around him and grinning that dorky grin of his at getting a fucking _hug_?

This is everything Dean's ever fought for.

And Dean should let go, he _should_, but he just can't make himself. Not yet, not after so long of just sitting here, trying not to hear John's words echo in his head:

_If there was ever a Sam at all…_

_If there was ever a Sam at all…_

_If there was ever a Sam at all…_

"You alright, Sammy?" he rasps out, getting a hand on his brother's neck, his shoulder, pulling back just a little, just enough to take in Sam, _his_ Sam, tired and rumpled and a little confused but _real,_ _here_. Here and still grinning and _how?_ How could this be anything but good? Anything but the only thing Dean has _ever_ needed to protect in the world?

"I'm fine, Dean," Sam laughs a little. "If I knew I'd get this kinda welcome, I wouldn't have taken my time getting gas on the way back. Everything okay?"

This is where Dean tells him. This is where Dean does the smart thing, the _responsible_ thing, and tells Sam everything their Dad just told him.

This is where Dean tells his exhausted but smiling baby brother that he's got demon's blood in his veins, that he's something their Dad thinks needs watching, maybe even needs killing.

This is where Dean tells Sam that everything he's ever known, everything he's ever believed about himself is a lie.

…

Except that's not what Dean's here for.

Right here, where he's standing, his job is to look after his little brother, to _protect_ his little brother, and he can do that a hell of a lot better by keeping this shit to himself, taking the time to work Dad back from his paranoid bender of crazy until he sees sense, realizes that Sam's not a monster, not a thing to be hunted, until they can go after the real evil here.

"Fine," Dean lies. He lies, and he _hates_ himself for it, hates himself but can't stand to see his brother hurt, so he pastes on a grin and pushes past it, plays through the pain. "How'd things go with Elkins?"

"Okay, don't get mad," Sam starts, and that pretty much sets off every alarm bell Dean's got.

"Sammy," he warns, and it's not a "Don't Tell Me You Used Freaky Demon Powers I Didn't Know You Might Possibly Get Someday Until Tonight" warning, it isn't! It's a "I've Had a Long Ass Night and Don't Want To Help You Hide a Fucking Body" warning.

They're totally different.

"Just promise me you'll hear me out," Sam pleads, and he's got the puppy eyes and the wobbly chin and good thing Sam's not the motherfucking Bad Seed, because Dean, fucking pushover that he is, caves like wet cardboard and nods.

"I got something, but I don't think we should tell Dad about it," Sam starts, and he clearly sees the question in Dean's eyes, sees the objections before they can get out, because he keeps going, talking low and urgent under the hum of the bathroom fan. "If he finds out, he'll just take off on us again, and we don't need that right now. Not when our best hope of keeping on top of this thing is staying together."

"What did you get?" Dean asks, brows furrowing, because what could be that important? What could be that big, that it would have Dad taking off like that?

But then Sam's reaching into his jacket, pulling out a long, thin box, a _case. _And there's no way, _no way_, but the lid is flips up, and there it is, long and lethal, the patina'd, gunmetal grey of the barrel, the bullets gleaming in the light, traced over and again with etching and inscriptions, and this is _it_. _This_ is what they've been looking for.

_The_ _Colt_.

This is the start of justice. Of revenge. Of ending this once and for all.

Dean swallows hard.

"That's it? Really it?" he gets out.

"Yeah," Sam nods, grinning.

"And he just..."

"I talked him around," Sam shrugs, closing the case and looking to make sure that their dad is still out for the count before wrapping it in a shirt and stuffing it in his duffle.

"And we're gonna not..." Dean's eyes dart to John, completely inert, slumped over on a pile of notes and empty bottles.

"Not until we have to," Sam nods, then quirks an eyebrow. "That okay?"

"Peachy," Dean agrees.

John doesn't know he's sleepin' ten feet away from a gun that can kill anything, anything at all? John doesn't know that Sammy, the kid he thinks is dangerous, should be _hunted_, snuck out and got the gun he failed to even get a lead on in a little over an hour? John has no idea that the kid he thinks _already_ knows too much managed to crack a case he's spent years on in just a couple of days? Well, John taking off is the _best_ possible way Dean could see that playing out right now, and honestly? It's about all he can process at the moment.

It's been a _really_ long night.

"Like we need somethin' else to fight about, right Sammy?" he jokes, smacking his brother on the arm and sliding between the sheets, hoping that Sam just goes with it, lets this whole mess in the making take fucking five for the night.

Sam doesn't say anything, just busies himself fussing with bags and, like, styling his hair and shit as Dean settles in beneath the covers. A few minutes later, he's there, floppy and overgrown, grabbing way more than his fair share of the comforter and bitching when he realizes Dean stole the good pillow.

Dean fires back, argues that if he has to sleep with a cover-stealing octopus, he should at least be able to have the comfy pillow, but midnight finds them tangled around each other anyway. Two days of fighting and stress on top of no sleep and little food have Sam out like a light in a matter of minutes. Dean watches his brother drift off, his hand making slow, lazy passes through Sammy's hair, trying to stifle a smile when the kid turns his head into the movement, kicks a leg together with Dean's beneath the sheets.

Because a demon sleeper cell that likes cuddling and having his hair played with?

Dad really has gone off the deep end.


	17. Chapter 17

Thanks for reading, everyone! To the person who asked for a list of stories, you can find it in my profile. I've also put up a link to Ao3, which will let you read the 'verse all in one go and download PDFs as well, if you'd like that.

Note: If you're one of the readers who's uncomfortable with Wincest, in WHATEVER form it might take - on-screen, off-screen, requited or not, backwards, forwards, or sideways - you may want to skip until the first chapter break. It shouldn't mess up your comprehension of the chapter at all. But if you're up for it... Well, someone else is, too. ;)

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><p>Sam wakes up slow to sun in his eyes and warm, smooth skin beneath his palms, the brush of hair against his face, his nose, legs tangled with his, and fingers softly, lazily knotted together in the sheets. He rolls closer to the warmth, the heat, the <em>comfort<em> of home, and the movement presses, rubs, brings an entirely different sensation to the forefront of his lazy, sleep-fogged mind. He's hard, and the heat, the soft, simple _need_ of it has him pressing forward, grinding into that warm, firm, _amazing_ place.

And Sam would love to say that he's thinking of Jess, of her bright smile and blonde curls and high, carefree laugh, but it's Dean's hair bristling and brushing against his face and the scent of his brother is inescapable, everywhere, just like the skin beneath his hands, as warm and familiar as his own, and it's _Dean's_ shirt his hand is tangled in, _Dean's_ fingers linked with his in the sheets, _Dean's_ hip Sam is grinding into, and the hot, sharp pressure is driving him harder, higher, _faster_, closer and further away at the same time, darker and deeper with each thrust, and Sam should stop, he _has_ to stop, but it feels _so_ good and it's _so_ wrong and Dean could _wake up_, is _gonna_ wake up, but he's so _close_ and so wrapped up in _brother_ and _home_ and _heat_ and Dean's moving, shifting, is _awake?_

"Sammy?" Dean murmurs as he rolls over into the circle of Sam's arms, slow and quiet and close, and it's that, his name on Dean's lips, his brother's breath ghosting across Sam's face, his hand lazily tangling in Sam's hair, that has his toes curling and his spine tingling and his vision exploding in white and before he knows it, before he can stop it, he's coming, tightening, tensing, curling into his big brother as he shudders under the cheap motel comforter, trying desperately to stifle his whimpers in Dean's neck.

"Mmm…" Dean groans, shifting in Sam's arms, drawing a soft, embarrassed, half-agonized whimper from Sam as he moves, slides against the soft, too-sensitive, sticky mess Sam's made of himself, feels the warm, wet evidence of Sam's shame beneath soft, damp cotton.

"Come on, dude," Dean mumbles, nudging against Sam lazily. "What are you, twelve? Go clean up."

"Yeah, sorry," Sam apologizes, sliding gingerly to the edge of the bed.

"I better get a reach-around next time," Dean grouches, stealing Sam's pillow and splaying across the bed. "Be a fuckin' gentleman, Sammy."

Dean snorts into his pilfered pillow at his own joke. He hitches his hips against the bed once, twice as he settles into a comfortable sprawl, the covers kicked down the bed, his t-shirt hitched up around his ribs, baring a long stretch of smooth, tan skin. Within seconds, his breathing evens out, falling back into the slow, lazy pattern of sleep right before Sam's eyes.

"Yeah," Sam answers faintly, staring at his brother before looking down at himself.

He's hard again.

_Dammit_.

* * *

><p>Dean finds his way back to the land of the living about halfway through Sam's attempt to take the world's longest shower.<p>

Like it's any secret what the kid's doin' in there.

It's a little funny, the image of Sam beet red and embarrassed as all hell, furiously trying to get it all out of his system before the hot water runs out but just not being able to through the frustration. And then that's just gonna make him _more_ flushed and _more_ frustrated, taking him from square one to square totally fucked.

Except, you know, _not_.

Dean gets why Sam's freaked out. He does, really.

Hell, Dean can still remember his first time waking up to a morning 'Hi, how ya doin'?' from his newly developed Downstairs Brain, his twelve-year-old self, all big ears and freckles, hard as hell, and afraid to breathe because he might wake up Sammy, soft and sleepy and all of eight, and scar him for fucking life. So yeah, he gets that whole knee-jerk panic response. He's pretty sure he spent most of his time back then waiting for someone to drag him away in a van for being a either a total perv or a horrible brother or both.

It's the first time in a long time that this has happened, though, and Sam always would worry something like this to death, you give him half the chance. But it's not like they're breaking new ground here. They're two dudes who've spent the majority of their lives, puberty included, in the same car or tiny-as-fuck motel room. Getting hard at awkward times is sort of the name of the game, and the sooner Sam accepts that, the sooner he can stop torturing the motel's water heater and come do his share of the packing.

After all, they've got bigger things on their plate right now.

Like the case.

And the Colt.

And the fact that if Dad knew they _had_ the Colt – that it's hiding right now in Sam's bag between his jeans and the soft, oversized hoodie Dean steals when he's sure Sam is gonna be too wrapped up in research to notice – the biggest thing on Dean's plate would go from convincing Dad that his crazy theories are just crazy theories to convincing Dad that Sam's being able to find the gun, getting it, hiding it, and then convincing Dean to help doesn't confirm every single one of them.

Doesn't mean that Sammy's a monster.

A demon.

Something that needs to be _taken care of_.

Because goddammit if John isn't just _waiting_ for Sam to say something or do something, to put just a _toe_ over that constant, shifting line in his head, that blurry, shadowy divide between the brother he raised Dean to protect and the monsters he trained him to kill.

Because Dean _knows_ their dad, knows how he gets about the _mission_ and _Sam_ and the things that are out there, waiting in the dark, and now he's everything but _certain_ that Sam is one of them? That _Sam, _shy, nerdy, too big and bright and different for this life, could be something sleeping? Something evil? Something that was never Sam at all?

It just… It just doesn't make sense. Not one lick. And Dean can't see the reasoning there, the logic, the trip from Point "A" to Point "Your Baby Brother's A Demon".

He just _can't_.

Because sure, Sam's always been different. Different from Dean. Different from John. Different from ninety percent of the kids at every school they've ever been in, but that doesn't make him _wrong_. It doesn't make him _defective_, or _broken_, or _less_, and it sure as hell doesn't make him _evil_.

It just makes him different. Makes him _Sam_.

And sure, he fights with Dad. Always has, probably always will, but that doesn't make him Children of the fucking Corn material.

Hell, most of Sam and Dad's fights crop up because Sammy's got the kind of brain that needs answers, needs to know the how and why and when and where of every goddamn thing, which does him great in a school or on a hunt but is pretty fucking rough when you're supposed to be following the say-so of an ex-marine whose first and last rule when it comes to info has always been: "You'll know when you goddamn need to know."

And that's always made geeky, knowledge-is-power Sammy pissed off and mad as hell, and Dean understands.

Hell, last time he saw Sam before their fight, before Louisiana and the fire in Palo Alto and hunting and _everything_, Dean'd still had a good two inches and ten pounds of heft on his baby brother.

Before these last few years of height and muscle, brains and info and _knowing more _had been Sammy's best weapon against the shit they were up against, outside of speed and a butterfly knife (not that Sam's knife skills were anything to sneeze at. Kid may have been slow to pick up on marksmanship, but hell if he hasn't been an ace with anything that had a pointy end since grade school).

But then, weapon or no, knowledge or no, Sam has always been angry, always let out the fear and stress and tension of their lives in bursts, in flares of hot, heady temper book-ended by long, sour sulks and sharp, pinched-faced bitching, more and more as he grew, went through the harsh, tight growth of high school, the caustic, constant fight of those last few months before he dropped the Stanford bomb.

It's the same anger, the same solid, steel backbone of fight that got Sam through the hunt in New Orleans, that saw him through a solo fight with a vamp armed with nothing but the determination that he and Dean get out of that goddamn basement alive, that ended with a spray of cold, dead blood and the screech of steel against gritty, grey cement.

It's the anger that sonofabitch Ellicott seized on, dragged out of Sam and twisted and shoved back in, bigger and better and more murderous than ever before, the same anger that had them at each other's throats in Indiana, that tore something so ugly out of Dean that he did the one thing he swore he'd never do to Sam, left his little brother by the side of the road, because driving off the rage was better than them both tearing into each other, ripping open wounds that hadn't even had a chance to stop bleeding.

But that anger, that constant undercurrent of fight in Sam, it's always been _under_, tempered, controlled, softened by his… his _Sam-ness_, the soft, gentle, puppy center that goes right down to his brother's bones, _deeper_, that's the first thing that surfaces when Sam wakes up in the morning and the last thing that fades when he falls asleep at night, his nose buried in Dean's shoulder and his fingers tangling, twisting in the hem of his brother's shirt, all hot, damp breath and slow, steady pulse and _safe._

And knowing that, seeing that _goodness_ that Sam lives and breathes, that comes out when he grins at Dean or thinks of Jess or looks up at the stars on a clear night, eyes tracing the light of bigger, brighter worlds than they could ever dream of touching as they sprawl together on the hood of his baby, pressed hip to shoulder, sharing anything and everything without ever needing to say a word…

It's everything Dean needs to know, because how could that be anything but Sammy? How could that be _evil_? Be _wrong_? Be anything but the only thing he's ever known his whole life, his _family_? How could the floppy, brainy, angry kid Dean raised be anything but his _brother_, his _Sam_? Anything but the best part of Dean's life? His one sure, solid thing? The thing he can count on? Depend on, no matter what?

How can Dean believe that the brother he loves, that he's saved and that's saved him more times than they could ever hope to count, is anything but his? Is anything but the eyes watching his back and the grin aimed at him from the passenger seat and the warm, wet breath on his neck first thing in the morning, grumbling and nosing into his shoulder for just five more minutes?

How can Dean believe that Sam is anything but the only thing he trusts in the world?

He can't.

He just _can't_.

It sounded crazy when Dad told him last night, and it still sounds crazy now in the sad, weak morning light.

Because if Sammy is what Dad says he has been? Is? Could become? Why hasn't he pulled the trigger yet? Why haven't they flipped whatever switch they need to, pulled whatever strings there are to pull to set him off yet?

If the goal is to drag John off the case, to get every Winchester not riding the black-eyed wave off the demon's trail and into a couple of body bags, why aren't they dead yet? Because if this thing's watching them? Waiting for a chance?

Well, it's had it in fucking _spades_.

Jesus Christ, this past year alone, Sam has saved Dean's ass from vampires, wendigos, demons, shapeshifters, a fuck ton of ghosts and spirits, psychics, cannibals, and one very pissed off scarecrow god.

Oh yeah, and he's also the reason Dean and John weren't _clawed to fucking bits_ by deavas and Sammy's handsy little psycho of a girlfriend, which _seriously_?

Dean isn't in on the Demon's whole master plan, but if there was ever a time to flip the switch for a heel-face-turn? That was it.

Sammy being evil, being some elaborate mask for some sulfuric splinter cell just doesn't make sense. Why would he have come looking for Dean back in October? Back when everyone, including Dad, was starting to think that there'd be no finding him, dead or alive?

Why drop Stanford and Jessica and the perfect excuse to never speak to another hunter ever again if it were all part of some elaborate evil plan?

Why let it all fall apart to tear off across the country after a lost cause? Why keep at it, keep looking, keep wearing himself to the bone when everyone with any sense said it was a hopeless case?

And then there's the transfusion, the blood that Dad thinks may have tainted Dean, ruined him forever…

His brother's blood.

The blood that saved his life, dragged him back from the brink.

Sam's blood.

_Demon_ blood, pumped into him at just the right time to save his life and tie them together with a debt Dean could never hope to repay, is always going to remember, to owe Sam for, is going to be hit with every time he sees his baby brother's arm or the harsh, angry half-moons that tear up and down his own arms, his neck, his legs.

Their first scars.

The ones that started this whole fucked up journey, the twisted, tangled trip that's landed them on the other side of a shifting, invisible divide with their dad, working together and against him with their only weapon to kill the Demon secret and hidden, just waiting for them to get their chance, to grab the answers they need and the justice they deserve. To end this thing, with or without John's permission, his silent, impossible approval less of a prize now than it's ever been in the face of Sam and the life they've found, _could_ find together.

...Okay. The whole demonic transfusion part might raise a few eyebrows. Especially hearing 'bout it second hand, not knowing how bad things were, not being in that moment with them, not seeing how close to gone Dean was, how close to breaking Sam had been…

And knowing what they know now, knowing what exactly is running through Sammy's veins…

Well, it doesn't look good.

Dean can admit that.

But it's not like Sammy could have planned any of that shit. There's no way Sam could have known it was a vampire, no way he could have known what it would do to Dean or how drained he would find him, and if he was some sort of black-eyed mastermind, why not kill the thing right? Why not accidentally-on-purpose land on the right way to ice the bloodsucking bastard without getting yourself all beat to hell first?

Dean was pretty out of it, but even he remembers Sam being fucking _flung_ across that basement, crashing like a rag doll into the railing, then getting the shit beat out of him as he ran through the list of ways to kill the son of a bitch, trying to find something that'd stick.

If Sam wasn't Sam, was just a script, a cover, a _con_, why screw up? Why let himself get fucked all to hell when the odds were that Dean wouldn't be able to tell up from down by the end of the show?

It doesn't make sense. None of it does.

Not this whole crazy theory of Sam being evil, not Dad being so wrapped up in booze and paranoia that he could actually believe it, not Dean giving this whole crazy, bullshit theory of Dad's more than five minutes of his fucking time, _nothing_.

So something happened to Sammy as a baby. Something that has to do with demon blood, and Sam's got freaky psychic powers to show for it (not that Dad can _ever_ know about those).

As far as Dean's concerned, until he gets hard proof that says otherwise, that's as far as it goes.

Sam is his _brother_. _That_ he can believe. His geeky, too-tall, too-smart, just a little bit of a spoonbender brother.

Not a demon.

Not a monster.

Not something to be watched or tracked or _hunted_.

Not if Dean has anything to say about it.

He packs their duffles with more force than necessary, moving the Colt from Sam's bag to his own just as soon as he's positive their dad is still passed out at the rickety motel table, one arm still sprawled protectively over his notes, the other clenched determinedly on a half-empty tumbler of Jack.

By the time Sammy finally comes out of the shower, the only thing left to do is wake Dad up, something Dean is really not looking forward to given the sheer number of bottles surrounding John and the scrawled, illegible intensity of the notes peeking out from underneath his unconscious form.

Dean's grown up seeing his dad in the middle of hunts, hot on the trail of this or that baddie that's gotta be iced and fast, but this intensity? This rough, raw determination, paired up with tight paranoia and so much hard, hot violence and anger that the air is just thick with it?

It's not the same as what you'd get with John being on just any old hunt.

This is their Dad at his worst. Less hunter and more hunted as he runs, drinks, tries to find the answers he can't possibly _want_ to know but just can't live with _not_ knowing.

It's awful and familiar, and even though he doesn't want it to, it drags Dean back to a tiny, cold Kansas motel room, to curling around baby Sammy and not speaking, not saying anything because there wasn't anything to say, because his mom was gone and their house was gone and no one, not even Dad, could tell him _why_, and Sammy kept crying, and Dad was always coming, going, leaving, on the phone, angry and sad and drinking anything, everything, getting this lost, awful look in his eye whenever he thought Dean couldn't see.

Dean shoves down the memories, strides past Sam to grab his stuff from the bathroom, shoves down the fear and the confusion and helplessness because he is _not_ four years old anymore.

He's not helpless, not useless. He has a plan and a job and a hunt and Sammy, dripping and pissed, with a towel clenched around his waist and his duffle open as he glares at Dean.

"Where is it, Dean?" Sam hisses, eyes darting to John, still dead to the world on a stack of motel stationery and crazy.

"Dude, calm down," Dean shushes, keeping an eye on their dad as he unzips his own bag. "'S right here. No big."

"Really?" Sam whispers, bitchy exasperation all over his face as his mouth tightens, his fingers clench into fists in the thin, scratchy terry of the motel towel.

"Yes, really," Dean repeats, hauling Sam back into the bathroom by one damp arm, because if they're having this conversation, they're having it somewhere they can shut the goddamn door and not blow the lid off the whole damn thing.

"You and Dad have been at each other's throats ever since we got back together," Dean pushes in a hushed whisper, clamping down tight on every dirty secret John's burdened him with, on every word of 'demon blood' and 'psychic army' and 'if there was ever a Sam at all', on switches that can be flipped and being the worst, the very_ worst_, brother in the world for keeping it all inside.

"If you're not fightin' or tryin' to punch the shit out of each other, he's holdin' a goddamn _gun_ to your head, so yeah I moved it," he admits, mouth tight, secrets swallowed, locked away for just a little longer. "Sorry, Sammy, but you've been _not_ beat-to-shit for a few days now. I'm gettin' kinda attached."

"I'm not letting you take the fall for this, Dean," Sam hisses, eyes tight and mouth working, and of course Sam's gonna fight him on this, why wouldn't he? It's only the difference between plausible deniability and their Dad ventilating Sam, possibly on principal, possibly because he's convinced Sammy's fucking _hellspawn_. Why would Sam make this easy for any of them?

"I left!" Sam persists in a hushed whisper. "He may be drunk and pissed, but he's not stupid! He's gonna know I was the one who got it!"

"Yeah, well I'm not lettin' you take all the credit," Dean grumbles stubbornly, falling back on hard-headedness to battle Sam's cold, hard facts. "This way, maybe he'll cool his jets long enough to listen to reason."

_Maybe_. Hopefully. Jesus Christ, at the very least the gun being in Dean's bag'll buy them some time to explain if they're caught out, if this whole goddamn thing blows up in their faces like it always seems to do.

"Fine," Sam agrees after a long, tense pause. Dean can see he's not happy about it, which makes two of them.

God, this had seemed like such a better fucking idea last night.

Because now that Dean knows what John thinks, what he suspects about Sam, he knows there's no way he's gonna take off if he sees that Sam snuck away in the night to get the gun from Elkins through some combination of persistence and persuasion and who knows what to and then went and kept it a secret from John.

The way their dad's thinkin' right now, there's no way he'd see that as anything other than a confirmation of every awful, wrong thing he's ever suspected about Sam. And there's no way that conversation would end with anything other than fingers pointed and battle lines drawn and Dean, the only thing standing between Sammy and John with his finger on the trigger.

_Again._

God, if it weren't for the demon, weren't for Mom and Jess and their whole fucking lives leading up to this, he'd take the damn thing and chuck it off a fucking bridge, if only so the image, the _nightmare_ of John finding it and 'testing' it's demon killing powers out on Sammy, would get out of his fucking head.

This seemed like such a good goddamn thing last night.

Now it's just the latest shovel of bullshit on Dean's already fucking full plate.

God, and he's still gotta tell Sammy about the psychic kids, about the Demon's army and Sam's place in it, about the dark, awful secrets sleeping in his veins.

If he were a man, were _any_ sort of man, he'd do it now. He'd give it to his little brother straight here in the quiet of the morning, come clean in every sense of the word, but God, they're about to set out, and dammit if Dean doesn't want a full day of dealing with this, doesn't want Sam to have to face a whole day of their shitty goddamn lives on top of his newfound fucking identity.

He'll wait. Just a little longer. Just for the right time, the right place.

Somewhere Sam can take it in, deal with it on his own terms.

"Get dressed," Dean nods, shoving everything but what's right in front of him down as he smacks Sam on the arm and strides out of the bathroom, tossing a thin, pasted-on smile for his brother's benefit. "Check out's at nine and you still owe me that reach-around."

The tease works like a charm, has the tight, angry tension bleeding out of Sam in favor of warm, pink-cheeked embarrassment, and Dean hates himself, hates himself for not telling, for being every bit as bad as their dad is about this crap, for perpetuating the fucking cycle, but right here? Right now? It's all he's fucking got, all that's gonna get them checked out and on the road to who-knows-where, back on this fucking case. So he's gonna cling to that, gonna hold on to it hard and watch, wait for the perfect moment to tear his baby brother's world apart at the fucking seams.

Because he's an awesome brother.

And a shit human being.


	18. Chapter 18

Hello, everyone! Hope you're all managing to survive Hellatus relativity intact. Thanks to everyone for reading and leaving us your comments. We're so grateful for every review we get and love reading your thoughts (even if some weeks we're so busy writing we don't get to respond to them, _cough_). Enjoy the chapter!

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><p>Sam can feel himself flush at Dean's quip, not just from embarrassment but something else, something that hits him in a hard, hot, uncomfortable flash, the echo of whatever it was that had him turning in to Dean's warmth this morning, that had him furiously focusing on Jess's smile, her hips, the long, lean curve of her legs while he was in the shower, trying, <em>trying<em>, but always failing, always coming back to green eyes not brown, to the burn of whisky and the tang of gunpowder and a grin that was less sunny, angelic sweetness and more cocky, devil-may-care wickedness, less Jess laughing as yet another batch of cookies burned, more Dean grinning at him in the dark of an abandoned mine, beat to hell with a monster on their heels and a pair of terrified civilians in the corner, but spinning a pair of flare guns on his fingers with a gunslinger's bravado anyway.

Always the cowboy.

And Sam is going straight to hell if he doesn't get a lid on whatever the hell this is right the hell now, because there are about a thousand reasons he does _not_need to go there, that Dean can't know that Sam might have even _thought_ about going there, especially while Dean was in the same _bed__, _because Dean doesn't do _gay_ and he doesn't do _bi_ and he certainly doesn't do _possibly incestuous morning_ _wood_,and the only way this can end is with Sam standing in a motel parking lot, duffle at his feet, watching as Dean - the only good thing in his life, the only thing he's ever _had_, the only thing he's got _left_ - drives off and out of Sam's life for good, leaves him alone.

Tells him to leave and never come back.

But this isn't Dad and sometimes liking guys isn't college and if Dean does that, finds out and tells him to book it, to pack up and ship out and lose his number, Sam doesn't have a bright future on the other side of that door, doesn't have school and friends and being his own person to look forward to.

He just has Dean, or rather, the jagged, gaping hole in his life where Dean used to be, and all the things, all the awful, terrifying things that Dean kept away (the nightmares, Jess's death, the visions, the knowledge that it was Sam that got their mom killed, the knowledge that hunting, killing, _hurting_ feels more right, more _natural_ than Stanford and normal and law school ever did) pushing and shoving and clawing to take him over now that his brother, his one defense against everything that he couldn't defend, not to anyone, has finally seen that behind Door Number One isn't a new car or a lifetime's supply of Turtle Wax, but instead a little brother who figured out three shots of Jäger into his first college party with Conner McCarty's tongue in his mouth that maybe he wasn't as straight as he'd always assumed.

All because Sam got the itch and didn't have the self-control to scratch it somewhere other than the family tree.

And yeah, it'll be a bitch shaking Dean and Dad long enough to slip out to the nearest bar flying a rainbow flag and get this out of his system, but it beats the hell out of molesting Dean in his goddamn sleep which, _Jesus Christ_, is Sam Winchester 'Brother of the Year' material or what? Ditch out on Dean for four years, leave him to be slowly eaten alive by a psychopathic vampire, shoot him in the chest in a murderous ghost-rage, and then fucking bad touch him in his sleep, all while Dean ditches hookup after hookup to let Sam tangle around him at night like a sweaty, needy octopus, goes to bat for Sam against their Dad day in and day out, basically sacrificing his whole worldview in the process, and tops it off with going along with Sam's quite frankly _insane_ plan to keep their having the Colt a secret.

God, Dean is gonna find out.

He's gonna find out, and when he does, he's never gonna look at Sam the same way again. It'll be goodbye to sleeping in the same bed and fingers in Sam's hair and sitting close enough to feel, to _know_ that Dean is safe and warm beside him, and there won't be any more of that simple, easy thing between Sam and Dean that gets them through this, that makes it all bearable.

He'll pull away. He'll pull away or leave entirely, and when that happens, Sam will have nothing.

Nothing at all.

Because Dean doesn't need him to hunt, doesn't need him to find the gun or the demon or to beat the damn thing, so why, why would he put up with this crap from Sam over and over again? Why would he want to?

To distract himself, to try and just put his brain on autopilot until he can come at this with something that at least resembles rational thought, Sam focuses on packing, on sweeping the hotel room for anything that Dean may have missed while Sam was in the shower trying to NOT jerk himself off to the play of muscles down his brother's back as he strips his shirt off at the end of a long day or the way Dean's grin flashes as he gets a particularly awesome bad idea, and when that plan fails spectacularly, he just starts conjugating Latin verbs in his head in reverse alphabetical order.

By the time he trips over the past perfect form of_trado_(to hand over, deliver, surrender, or betray), they're on the highway outside of Manning, and Sam realizes that he doesn't know where they're headed.

"Where are we even going?" he asks Dean, his eyes tracking their Dad's truck in front of them rather than skimming over to the driver's seat, to his brother and last night and everything that he is very, very determinedly _not_ thinking about.

"Breakfast," Dean answers, looking at Sam like maybe he's hit his head one too many times this year.

"After that, Dean," Sam glares, because even as the object of his frustrated, misdirected sex drive's fixation, Dean is still an annoying smart-ass.

"Lunch," Dean smirks, and Sam swears, if he could just smack his brother without having to listen to a two-hour lecture on why you don't annoy the operator of a classic car while he's driving said classic car down a steep-ass mountain, he would, he _really_ would.

But honestly, having Dean lecture Sam on drive shafts and asphalt and torque and traction while maintaining furious, glaring green eye contact would be exactly what Sam _doesn't_ need right now, so he keeps his hands to himself, just huffs out an irritated breath and rolls his eyes at his brother's idiocy.

"Don't be an ass," he complains, chafing at the sameness of it all, the déjà-vu discomfort of not knowing where they're going or why or for how long, at having no say in anything but which greasy entrée he's gonna get at the next dive before being crammed back into the car and dragged from one corner of the map to the other, even that one, small freedom coming with jokes and jabs at his expense, loaded with reminders that he's the square peg in a set of round holes, the one oddity.

The freak in a family of freaks.

"Are we seriously just going to follow him across the country?" Sam sighs, rubbing at the headache blooming behind his eyes and hoping to god that it's just lack of food and caffeine, that it'll go away once he's gotten coffee and let Dean stuff him with eggs and toast somewhere the sun isn't glaring so damn bright, taking the pounding in his head and turning it up to eleven. "No leads, no direction, no plan?"

"He's got a plan," Dean argues, shrugging. "He just hasn't told us yet."

"I _know,_" Sam fumes, because it's _true. _John's probably got three or four fucking plans in the works right now, churning away in his mind somewhere alongside the Jack and repressed intimacy issues, got them just stewing, growing, getting ready to spill out in incomprehensible orders and day-drinking, but he's not gonna tell Sam and Dean anything, no, because why tell the sons you're dead set on ordering around like trained Dobermans what the fuck you want them to do in advance? No, it makes much more sense to just dump them in situations and wait for them to disappoint you.

That's clearly the best plan for _everything_.

"What?" Dean demands, seeing the look on Sam's face, giving him the demanding eyes and set chin that say he's just not going to let this one go.

"I'm just getting really fucking sick of not being told things, man," Sam sighs, slumping in the passenger seat and trying to will the pounding at his temples away. "How are we supposed to prepare for what we're up against if we don't_know_ what we're up against? How are we supposed to get ready for what's coming if he keeps holding out on us like this?"

The pause drags out, stretches just a beat too long.

"Dean?" he asks, looking over at his brother in the driver's seat.

"Yeah. No, you're right," Dean shakes his head, nodding as he keeps his eyes on the road and digs through the box of books-on-tape at his feet. "You feelin' Fitzgerald or Steinbeck today?"

Dean's avoiding the subject.

He won't talk about this, and he's got that shadow in his eye that means bad news, and Sam wants so, _so_ hard for today to be over, to be just a bad dream, a false start on reality conjured by his subconscious, because between what happened this morning and what's happening now, Sam is pretty sure Dean is doing the exact same thing he's doing, which is running over what happened this morning over and over again and finding no other explanation than "My brother is an incestuous homo freak, and I should leave his ass at the nearest truck stop and never look back."

By the time they pull in behind John at the Durango Diner, the air in the Impala is thick with the silence, _East of Eden_ trying and failing to fill the dead air as Sam ignores Steinbeck's attempts to wrestle with the question of family in favor of his own.

Dean is leaving him. Pulling away in the wake of last night and this morning and everything, and it's too fast, too much for Sam to get a grip on, to keep locked in, so when Dean kills the Impala's engine and stuffs her keys in his pocket, Sam doesn't immediately step out, doesn't rush to stretch his legs and shake the cramped, pinned-in feeling from his limbs.

He's gonna stay. Hold on to being here in the front seat with Dean, whatever's between them bending, straining but not broken yet, for as long as he can.

For whatever reason, Dean does the same, watches their Dad leave the truck and stride into the diner as the Impala's engine winds down, as her fans still and chassis settles, and Sam _wishes_ he knew what Dean was thinking, wishes he knew what to do next or what would fix this, would make it better, but he _doesn't_ and it's only making things worse, the silence getting thicker and heavier and he can't take it anymore, has to say _something._

"Dean, about this morning—" Sam starts, but Dean doesn't let him get that far, doesn't give Sam time to get another word out before he's chuckling, shadow still in his eyes, and it's not happy, not anything but bleak and empty and a little disbelieving, and Sam doesn't know what the hell that even _means_.

"Yeah," Dean snorts. "This morning. What'd I tell you, Sammy? All work and no play…"

"Yeah…" Sam nods, and he shouldn't push it, he shouldn't, but he has to know, has to know if Dean really is gonna just laugh this whole thing off, file it away as just another thing to tease Sam about for the rest of his natural life. "So… we're good?"

"'Course," Dean grins. "Unless I don't get that reach-around next time, in which case—"

"You're an idiot," Sam laughs, stupidly relieved at Dean being so- so _Dean_ about the whole thing.

"Maybe," Dean nods, grin fading, wearing thin at the edges. "You gonna be okay, Sammy?"

"Yeah," Sam nods quickly, that falling, sinking feeling back in his stomach, because this feels like it, like the catch that's always just around the corner in his life, just waiting to take any good thing he's got and burn it to the ground. "You just seemed kinda… like there was something on your mind."

"Just the case. Workin' with Dad again, tryin' to figure out if we should just start buyin' booze by the case instead of the bottle," Dean dismisses with a careless, sarcastic grin that's wearing thin at the edges. "The usual, Sammy. Just the usual."

It's not the whole truth. It's not even a good lie, but there's a fracture in Dean's eye, a sharp, desperate brittleness in his smile that Sam just can't bring himself to punch through, and if it's something else, something not Sam and his goddamn sexual reawakening, then Dean'll come around to talking about it sooner or later. Sam just has to wait.

And if it is, if Dean's lying about laughing off the whole thing as just another weird, awkward fact of their weird, awkward lives…

It may make Sam a bad person. May make him the worst person alive, but if Dean's willing to lie about being okay with things as they are, he is too.

Just for a little longer, at least.


	19. Chapter 19

The Durango Diner is every cliché of every greasy spoon Sam has ever encountered, a dim, run-down storefront in a long line of dim, run-down storefronts, all dingy, flaking paint and chipped, pockmarked concrete, with the Durango having the added bonus of Christmas lights stapled to its faded, sagging awning, despite it being well into July.

Inside isn't much better, a long, dim rectangular stretch of grime and Formica in every shade of beige and dingy on this earth, so narrow that Sam's pretty sure it's less a diner and more a hallway that serves food. If he wanted to, he could put one hand on the battered, beaten counter and knock the listing framed snapshots, presumably of famous and infamous diner patrons but long ago faded beyond recognition, off the wall.

There are no tables, and no servers to speak of, just a handful of harried staff members, half of whom seem dedicated to frying… _things_ and the other half of whom seem to have drawn the short straw and be pulling double duty, scurrying back and forth between taking orders and slapping together plates of toast and eggs with harried, hurried abandon.

Sam judges the likelihood of his being able to get anything not deep fried and covered in bacon to be somewhere between 'laughable' and 'impossible.'

Next to him, Dean is so excited, he's _bouncing_.

On the strength of that, Sam keeps his mouth shut as he crams himself onto a barstool at the packed counter that serves as the place's only seating, the potency of John's hangover glare convincing a couple of the diners that scooting down and letting the Winchesters sit together is the best idea they're gonna have all day.

Sam has no complaints. Any layout that puts him next to Dean with his dad's hangover a good body and a half away is a good seating plan in his book.

"Hey Sammy, check it out," Dean nudges him, shoving a menu in his face from where they're crammed shoulder-to-shoulder along the narrow counter. "The Cure: eggs, potatoes, cheese, green chili, and whatever meat you want. It's their specialty."

"Specialty" is not the word Sam would have chosen.

If the oozing piles of fried potato, meat, egg, and green goop the other patrons are digging into are this "Cure," it looks more like a hot stack of vomit and less like the remedy to any ailment Sam wants to ever have or know the details of.

"It's almost pure grease, Dean," Sam rolls his eyes, wondering why the hell he's the only one in this family that understands the link between shoveling this crap in your mouth day after day and keeling over with blocked arteries and a beer gut at the ripe old age of thirty-five.

"It's got chili," Dean defends. "You eat chili."

"That's not chili," Sam snorts, jerking his chin at the glutinous, pale green sludge a waitress is ladling over what was a perfectly good omelet just seconds ago. "It's gravy with peppers in it. You might as well pour bacon grease on top of everything."

"That sounds awesome," Dean grins, elbowing him and sending Sam jostling into the man sitting next to them. "Hey, you think if I ask, they'd do that for me?"

"_Dean_," Sam hisses before sending an apologetic look to the man who's only just managed to not give himself a lapful of Cure.

"You three together?" a waitress demands, striding over to their stretch of counter with a notepad and pen at the ready, the smiling bacon and eggs on her t-shirt a direct contrast to the flat, no-nonsense pinch of her mouth.

"For better or worse," John grumbles. "Three coffees, two Cures. Fry the eggs all to hell and give us sausage on both of 'em. Sam, what's it gonna be for you?"

"Just the coffee, thanks," Sam sends a tight smile at the waitress as he sticks the menu back into the combination condiment rack and napkin dispenser.

"_Sam_," Dean protests, smacking a knee into Sam's under the counter in reproach.

Sam shoots him an annoyed glare, because there's nothing _wrong_ with just having coffee, especially when they've got nice, non-greasy, gravy-free protein bars in the Impala and _especially_ especially when, any minute now, one of the chili-covered nightmares around them is gonna develop sentience and need to be put down with a silver bullet, a good salt-and-burn clearly having only made it angry.

But then, Dean's got his "Take Care of Sammy" face on, and between the hard, heavy ache pounding in Sam's head and the tightness that still hasn't completely left Dean's eyes, Sam just doesn't feel like fighting with him on this, not after everything else that's happened this morning. Sam caves, folds like a wet cardboard box and lets Dean win this one, plucking the least reprehensible thing on the menu out of his head and looking up to the increasingly impatient waitress.

"I'll have the eggs," he tells her. "Scrambled, with wheat toast, please."

"That's better," Dean mutters as she finishes taking their order and stalks away after coffee.

"Shut up," Sam grumbles, snagging a packet of artificial sweetener from the napkin stand and fiddling with it on the cracking Formica countertop.

"Eat more and I will," Dean tosses back easily, watching the grill in front of them but leaning subtly into Sam nonetheless, the cramped dimensions of the counter and the general Winchester lack of personal space having them knee-to-knee and shoulder-to-shoulder in the warm, crowded din of the diner, and for all the grease, for all the crowd and brightness and noise of this place, it's got him Dean, here and close and keeping up a steady, sarcastic commentary at Sam's side, a sure sign of his being a hell of a lot happier than he was in the parking lot, staring down whatever's been weighing on him so heavy without a parade of steaming, sizzling breakfast grease to serve as a distraction.

It gives Sam something to focus on outside of the slow, steady pounding in his temples, the low, drawling litany of Dean's voice a steady commentary almost exclusively consisting of him trying to figure out if the food coming off the grill is destined for them or not, and then morphing into increasingly creative criticisms of said food's recipient when it invariably is not.

It's an effective distraction, so much so that by the time their food is actually ready, Sam's ducking his head to hide a smile in the corner of his jacket as Dean thanks several deities, both real and of his own impromptu creation.

"Two Cures with sausage?" their waitress drones, brandishing two plates of cholesterol and chili.

"Over here," Dean nods, motioning to himself and John, "and an egg with wheat toast for the lady."

He jerks his head in Sam's direction, shooting a grin at the waitress, and snags a fork.

"I'll get you boys a refill on the coffee," she answers, cracking a hint of a smile and setting Sam's plate down in front of him.

She's back with a fresh pot before Sam can even get back at Dean for the 'lady' quip, the mid-morning sun glinting off the glass of the carafe in a sharp, sudden rush of light that has his headache spiraling, sharpening, digging into him with vicious, relentless intent, the pain sending him hunching in on himself, elbows slamming against the countertop as he tries to brace himself against anything, _everything_, whatever the hell is racing through him, tearing through his head and ripping him apart as it tries to get out.

"Sam, you okay?" Dean demands, fork clattering to the counter as he braces Sam with a solid, worried grip on his arm.

"Yeah," Sam grits out on reflex, trying to contain the riot building in his head with hands, fingers, anything, everything, because this _can't_ happen, not _again_, not _here_, "I'm- I-"

And Dean is there, hustling him off the barstool, getting a shoulder under Sam and half-shoving, half-carrying him the length of the narrow diner, through a swinging door into cool and dark and then the next wave hits, slams into Sam like a fucking _freight train_, the grinding, pounding, lightning flashes of agony tearing through his _head_ and his _eyes_ and his _thoughts_, fighting and snarling and competing with Dean's voice, there, right_there_, but falling away, fading, as the pain stabs through Sam, rips him open and drags him under.

"Sam? Sam! Sammy!"

Just like every time, Sam tries to grab on to the voice, to the hands fisting in his shirt, catching him as his legs fail, as his limbs cease to be his own. He tries to hold on tight to the _present_, the _here_ and _now_, the brother calling his name, tries to cling to reality against the falling, dragging, scraping agony tearing through him, stealing his legs and his hands and his eyes and hauling him kicking and screaming under, away, away from Dean, his voice, his hands, the last solid, real things in the world as Sam loses his fight against the power sleeping inside him, is flung kicking and screaming through harsh, bleeding shuddering flashes of what could be.

He's picked up, flung, flying, turning inside out as flashes of forest and mountain rip through his head, sandpapered scrapes and salt in wounds and a baby, young and sweet and perfect and so, so doomed, and Sam doesn't know how he knows that, doesn't know how he knows she's sweet and perfect and lost as he ever was, and then a mother smiling, beautiful, normal, exhausted but happy as she looks up at a man in a battered, beaten ranger's uniform, grinning down at her through three days of stubble and this the past and the present and the future and in one of those or all three or right now, these people are going to _die_.

And suddenly, like a match to gasoline, there's fire, brutal and merciless and scorching Sam as it licks hot across nursery walls and a woman's skin, blood dripping on a baby girl's pink onesie, screams, Sam's or hers or _his_, he doesn't know, but they're loud and anguished, and through it all, through the blood, the fire, the screams, _everything_, in and under and around and _behind_—

A horrible, awful, _evil_ pair of yellow eyes.

Staring. Watching. _Waiting_.

For Sam.

Always for Sam.

And as the eyes fade, go black, swallow the light and the smoke and the screams but not the burn, never the burn, Sam can hear a voice, a happy, satisfied murmur, like a lover's, in the distance:

_"You're my favorite…"_


	20. Chapter 20

Thanks for reading, everyone!

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><p>Sam comes to braced between warm brother and cool porcelain, the searing, scorching heat of the flames dying, fading, falling away from the cool, bleach-scented air of the diner's bathroom, the chill of the tile chasing away the ghost of fire and blood and those staring, glaring, awful yellow eyes.<p>

The rough, desperate, worried rush of his brother's voice reaches him the same time Dean's hands register, one knotted in the front of Sam's shirt, the other at the nape of his neck, fingers buried tight in the mess of hair back there, sweat-damp and fear-clammy.

"Tell me I didn't land in a urinal," Sam groans, eyes squeezed tight against the pounding, aching aftershocks of the vision as he clumsily brings a hand up to cover Dean's on his neck, to give him, hell, to give _both of them_ that contact, that physical reassurance, the warm, safe security that only touch seems to bring.

"It's the wall, Sammy," Dean answers on a shaky, relived laugh, and Sam chances opening his eyes, blinks away the last of the pain, the darkness, to see Dean crouched in front of where he's propped up against the bathroom wall, obvious relief doing nothing to soften the tension in his shoulders, the tight lines of stress around his mouth, his eyes worried, but soft, smiling.

"Best. Brother. Ever," Sam sighs, letting his head fall back against the tile as the ache, the stress of being dragged out of his mind, flayed open with what-if's and maybe's, and then shoved back in, of being put through the psychic wringer, tugs at him, begs him to forget the nightmares behind his eyes and sleep, to curl into 'warm' and 'safe' and 'brother' and just let it all _go_, drop away into the scent of Dean under warm flannel, the soft, soothing pressure of fingers in his hair and a deep voice humming Metallica just a little off key.

Sam wishes he could. Wishes _so hard_ that he could just put it down and walk away.

But he's got a job to do. He's got this family to save.

He's got a brother he can't let down.

A brother who is currently grinning like Sam's lame quip about the urinal and his own awesomeness is the funniest thing he's heard all week.

"Yeah? Tell me something I don't know," Dean laughs, shaky and relieved as his hand cups Sam's face, as his fingers make those soft, soothing passes through his hair that just seem to bleed all the stress, all the worry, all the fear out of Sam.

But there's a shadow in Dean's eyes, a catch in his grin that means trouble, that means the smile's more for Sam's sake than his own. It tells Sam that no matter how much he might want to sit here, to let the quiet, the cool tiles and the gentle pressure of Dean's fingers in his hair take him away, scrub this latest reminder that he's a walking, talking, spoon-bending sideshow die, the longer he's down, the longer he's anything less than 100% normal Sam, the longer Dean's gonna worry, the longer Dean's gonna blame himself for things that are completely out of his control, driving himself and Sam up the wall in the process.

Besides, his spoonbending's done its job, dangled a workable lead in Sam's face, just waiting for him to grab it, to take the piece of shit hand life's dealt him and clean out the table with it.

"What was it this time?" Dean asks heavily, hand still making it's slow, soothing passes through Sam's hair, and he has to catch it, to stop those awesome, mind-numbing fingers, because he can't be numb right now, needs to dive back in, be on his game, because this is the _case_, the _mission_, this is _important_.

No matter how much he just wants to ignore everything, including the total humiliation of this morning, and just let Dean and his stupid, too-talented fingers lull him to sleep.

"There's gonna be another fire," Sam grits out, dragging himself to his feet and shrugging off Dean's steadying, worrying hands as he scrabbles in the paper towel dispenser, but comes up empty. "Soon. I saw the family, kid, the works."

"I couldn't see any landmarks," he continues, huffing out an irritated breath when the second towel dispenser gives him nothing, "but I think I've got something that can help us figure out where they'll be."

Sam forgets the towels, snatches up Dean's arm as he digs out a pen and sticks it behind his ear before setting to rolling up the left sleeve of Dean's over shirt, thanking whoever's listening that his brother left his jacket in the Impala for once.

"Sammy, what are you doing?" Dean demands, tugging, trying to get his arm back and only stilling with an annoyed whine when Sam smacks him on the wrist in admonishment.

"The dad was wearing some sort of uniform," Sam explains, tearing the pen cap off with his teeth and spitting it out onto the grimy bathroom floor before starting to scrawl on Dean's forearm at a feverish pace. "Ranger? Parks services, maybe? I don't know, but I saw this logo."

He squints at the drawing he's rendered on the smooth expanse of Dean's forearm, the sharp peaks and valleys of the circular logo sketched out in shaky, unsteady ballpoint across tanned skin and toned muscle and bookended by the slicing, silvery arcs of the bite scars stretching up from his brother's wrists, down from the elbow.

"We find it," Sam continues, shaping up a curve here, adding a detail there, trying to get the sketch as close to the shaking, wavering vision that tore through his head as possible, "we can get a bead on where they are, get the jump on this thing."

"Great, but you gotta dig in so _hard_?" Dean whines, working his fist and making Sam's canvas flex and twitch beneath his fingers.

"Don't be a baby," Sam dismisses, digging out his cellphone and snapping a shot of the drawing before hitting speed dial and holding the phone to his ear, listening to the dial tone as he watches Dean take his arm back, a wounded expression on his face as he examines it for permanent damage.

"Buenos dias," drawls a groggy, lazy voice on the other end of the line.

"Ash, it's Sam Winchester," Sam greets, a small, reflexive grin sneaking out before he heeds Dean's increasingly irritated motions to put the call on speaker. "You got your research pants on?"

"Ain't got any pants on," Ash answers candidly, and Sam can hear him stretch, groaning a little on the other end, grins at Dean's disgusted wince. "But for you, I could find 'em. What you got for me?"

"A logo," Sam says, pecking away at his email with the phone's tiny stylus. "I'm sending it to you now. I need to know whose it is. I saw it on a uniform, looked like the guy was maybe a Ranger, or Parks Services? Possibly in the mountains somewhere, but I don't have a lot more for you than that."

"S'all I need, compadre," Ash tosses back. "You want I should put your omen stuff on the back burner, make this priority numero uno?"

"If we're on the right track with this, they should line up," Sam shakes his head, turning it over in his mind and determinedly ignoring Dean's "Sammy, You Done Fucked Up" look. "Try to find an omen, any omen, near one of the parks with a logo like this one. Should give us somewhere to start, at least. Did you get the picture?"

"Yeah," Ash says, and Sam can hear typing in the background. "Which one of you am I lookin' at here?"

"It's me," Dean pipes up testily from over Sam's shoulder.

"Nice guns there, Dean," Ash laughs.

"Thanks," Dean bites out, then goes back to moodily glaring at Sam as he turns back to his conversation with Ash.

"Listen, Ash," Sam sighs, rolling his eyes at Dean's antics. "You get anything on this, email me. Phone calls are gonna be a little…"

Sam gropes for a way to tactfully describe the three way dogfight that's been life in the Winchester Caravan for the past couple of days and comes up with less than nothing.

"_Risky_," he settles, "for the foreseeable future. Stick to email if you can?"

"Understood," Ash confirms. "Anything else?"

"Yeah," Sam grins. "Remind me to buy you a PBR and some chili fries next time I'm at the Roadhouse."

"Make 'em chili cheese fries and you got yourself a deal," Ash agrees, signing off, and Sam turns to Dean, squared off and spoiling for a fight.

"_Omens_," Dean bites out, arms crossed and feet squarely planted on the dirty tile floor of the bathroom. "You gave _Ash_ Dad's research?"

"I had to do something with it, Dean," Sam defends, only a hint of exasperation creeping into his voice. "We couldn't make heads or tails of that crap!"

"Yeah, which is why you take a breather and look at it the fuck again!" Dean explodes. "Not farm it the fuck out to any yahoo we run across, Sam!"

"Don't 'Sam' me, Dean!" Sam snaps, getting in Dean's face. "Not about this! I'm just trying to solve this case! I'm just trying to get to the bottom of whatever the _fuck_ is going on with the demon and my head and all this psychic crap! How long's it been, Dean? Four months?_Six?_ Longer if you count before, before- _everything?_

"We don't know _anything_!" he spits out. "We've got nothing, Dean, _nothing!_ Ash is the best resource we've got outside of Dad's journal, Dad's research, and now he's on the case. How the hell is this not a good thing?"

"It's not a good thing when it has you handin' a file full of dirt on your freaky psychic powers out to every hick and hunter we meet!" Dean tosses back, quick and vicious and that's it, if that's what he really thinks-

"Freaky, huh?" Sam bites out, crossing his arms and setting his jaw.

"Sam-" Dean sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose and holding up a hand, backpedaling, trying to take it off the table, but hell if Sam's gonna let him get away with that.

"No, no," Sam interrupts heatedly. "You're right, Dean. I get it. Can't be spreading around what a _freak_ you got in the family, huh? No one can know Sammy's popping visions left and right? Someone might get the wrong idea!"

"Sam-"

"Can't tell anyone what a monster your baby brother is, right?" Sam demands, hot, tight, _furious_. "Someone could decide I'm their next case! Someone could try and _hunt_ me, right? That's your worst nightmare, isn't it? That someone'll find out what a _psychic freak_ I am, and here I've gone and given out the goddamn research! Put it out there that I'm something _wrong_, something _unnatural_, something that needs to be _hun_—"

In an instant, Dean's got both fists in his jacket and slams him against a wall, eyes a dark, furious green, hard and sharp and every bit as angry as Sam is, was until his world became finding his feet and catching his breath and Dean, hot with anger and a breath away.

"No. You're. Not," he growls, pressed tight to Sam, pinning him against the bathroom wall with his eyes and his fists and his _weight__,_ and Sam isn't moving, couldn't if he wanted to, size difference be damned. "You're_not_."

"Dean—" Sam pants, trying to catch his breath, to move, to do _anything_, but all that does is shove them closer, tighter together, chest to chest and hip to hip, and he's trapped, pinned, caught between a rock and a brother, _fierce_ and _furious_ and _not moving_.

"Don't fucking talk about yourself like that," Dean mutters, eyes squeezing shut, his head falling forward, towards Sam, and they're close, too close, not even a breath away.

"You're my _brother_," Dean rasps, and Sam's eyes fall shut, amping every fucking sense he's got up to eleven. Everything is leather and coffee, gunpowder and hair gel and the brush of Dean's nose and the bristle of his hair and the hot, barely leashed _heat_of him, there, right _there_, and he's talking, murmuring, and it's low and fierce and dark and a brand and a banner and a promise all at once, and Sam swears he can feels the words in his _bones_.

"Not a _freak_, not a _monster_. My. Brother."

And it needs an answer, a repudiation or a denial or a rebuttal, but Sam can't think, can barely _breathe_, can just pant, too shallow in and outs shoving him into Dean over and over again, their chests rising in tandem, together, always together, and all he can do is nod, agree, because if Dean believes, _trusts_ with this much intensity, this much conviction, Sam can too, can find it in himself, can trust, just enough, because it's Dean. It's Dean and he believes, and he wouldn't lie, not to Sam.

Not about this.

It's not much of an answer, but apparently it's enough for Dean, whose hands grip, clench and release in the plaid of Sam's shirt before slowly, deliberately, letting go and smoothing down the fabric.

"I'm just trying to look out for you," Dean mutters, stepping back, his eyes shadowed. "Do my job. Keep you safe."

"I know," Sam answers softly, not trusting his voice yet. "You always do."


	21. Chapter 21

Thanks for reading and leaving us reviews, everyone! They're so appreciated!

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><p>"Took you long enough," John gravels when they make their way back to their seats.<p>

"Sammy had to fix his makeup," Dean quips in a thin, pale imitation of their normal back-and-forth.

"And Dean's _really_ constipated," Sam tosses back, letting himself rise to the bait and trying, _trying_ not to be floored, not to be shaken to the core, because this is deeper, is _so much worse_ than he ever thought it could be.

He props his elbows up on the counter and presses a palm to his eyes as subtly as he can. The harsh fluorescents of the diner are sending tendrils of pain through his head, sparking behind his shuttered eyelids.

Sam always feels like this after a vision, faint and torn-up on the inside, aftershocks rippling through his skill. In the past, he's been able to force it down, at least a little, with the rush of adrenaline that comes from a ticking clock and a mountain of research. He wishes he could pull out his laptop, track down somewhere near this shit hole with a decent Wi-Fi signal and get to work instead of sitting around cooling his heels until he hears back from Ash, trying to act like everything's just fine for Dad's benefit when it's anything but. When it feels like everything is crumbling around them to the tune of a clock ticking away, counting down to zero and flames and ruin.

Maybe it's wrong to keep it from Dad. Sam may not be feeling particularly charitable towards the man at the moment - or, well, _ever_ - but he _has_ been hunting this demon for more than twenty years. What it did to Mom… Sam knows, probably better than anyone now, how deep that wound runs. How it feels to wake up from dreams of blonde hair and blood and flames into a world that is missing a vital piece, a world that keeps on running just the same when it feels like it should be crumbling away from the foundations. Sam's known for a long time that what's kept John going all those years wasn't love but vengeance, a fire burning in his belly, the need to make this demon _pay_.

Sam's understands that now. He feels it too.

In some ways, John deserves to know the truth, deserves to know about the Colt and Sam's visions, about the thing that Sam knows is waiting for them somewhere too far away and too close all at once, and even if he didn't, he knows more about this demon than Sam and Dean do, knows how it thinks, at least has _some_ idea about what it wants. It would be better for all of them if Sam could just put it all on the table, safer, easier, and in a different world, he would probably do just that. In a world where Dad hasn't been drinking whiskey like it's water, hasn't been throwing his weight around and pulling his weapon at the slightest provocation, looking at both of them like they're more enemies than allies. In that world, Sam might tell him all of it and take the consequences, but now? Well, he's been on Sam's case enough as it is. He's as much as said he doesn't trust Sam, and if he finds out Sam has neglected to tell him something this big? This important?

Sam doesn't want to think about how he'd react.

_'He might just take a shot at me out of spite,' _Sam thinks wryly.

Even in his own head, it's a bad joke.

He glances up at Dean out of the corner of his eye, thinks about his brother fingering the keys to the Impala last night. The idea of Dean even _thinking_ about leaving Dad behind - Dean, who has spent a year trying to get them all back together, to convince Sam to forgive and forget the fact that Dad nearly got him _killed_ - is hard to fathom. Dad's not the only one who's been acting strangely lately. Dean's jumpiness, the way he's been positioning himself oh-so-subtly between Sam and Dad? Dean agreeing to hide the Colt, and now, hiding the visions without Sam even needing to ask, when the Dean Sam used to know would be itching to give the man a full report?

Sam's not sure what to think.

To top it off, there's that stuff he'd said in the bathroom.

_"You're my brother. Not a freak, not a monster. My. Brother."_

Where the hell had that come from? Because that's way beyond Dean's normal big brother protectiveness, too intense, too passionate to have come from nowhere. Sam's usually pretty good at reading his brother - way better than vice versa, no matter what Dean thinks - but he's got no idea what's been going on in that brain for the past few days...

Dean senses his gaze and glances up, a forkful of green ooze poised halfway to his mouth. He raises one eyebrow, a silent '_You okay, Sammy?'_

Sam shrugs minutely and turns back to his own, untouched meal which is looking less appetizing by the second. He's about to touch his ankles to Dean's under the table in a reassuring gesture before (_heavy press of his brother's body shoving him back against the tile, thrill of pleasure curling hot in his belly_) he thinks better of it, letting his foot drop back onto the linoleum.

He pulls his elbow back from where it's lightly brushing Dean's and shovels a forkful of greasy, lukewarm egg into his mouth.

Somewhere out there, the demon who killed Jess, who murdered Mom and ripped their family to shreds, is about to do the same thing to another family, Sam's own father hates him, and Sam may be one morning jerk-off session away from sending the only good thing he has going in his life walking out the door.

Right now, Sam can't do anything about the demon. He can't stop the strange images from shoving their way into his mind and upending their lives, can't control the powers that he knows are inside of him waiting to burst out and leave devastation in their wake. He can't force Dad to like him, just like he can't make him respect Sam as a hunter, but he can control himself. He can and will nip these weird feelings for his brother in the bud, can smother them now before Dean ever has a chance to learn about this new and horrifying way Sam is finding to be a freak. He can, and he will. He has to.

Because this may be the only thing in their incredibly, amazingly screwed up lives that Sam has any control over, and goddammit, he is _not_ going to fuck it up.

After four hours of following John Winchester's truck down every back country road in southern Colorado, Sam would classify himself as _beyond_ antsy.

"Seriously, where is he leading us?" he snaps again.

"Dunno," Dean grunts, eyes fixed on the windshield.

"I mean, is he just driving in random directions? Or is there some kind of master plan he just doesn't feel like sharing?"

"Dunno," Dean repeats.

Sam huffs.

"Okay, this is too much. I've got to call him," he says for what feels like the tenth time. "Give me my phone."

There's a smirk tugging at Dean's lips now.

"Nah," he says, shifting a little to rub in the fact that he's _sitting_ on Sam's goddamn cell phone, snatched it right out of Sam's fingers around hour two and stuffed it under his ass like he's sixteen and playing keep-away with Sam's homework.

"Come _on_," Sam complains. "It's not funny anymore. You're being a jerk."

"And you're being a whiny little bitch," Dean tosses back pleasantly.

"I'm serious," Sam tells him. "We're adults. You can't tell me this need-to-know crap doesn't drive you crazy."

"And what is calling him going to accomplish, exactly?" Dean asks, serious now, glaring out the windshield at the asphalt. "Except give you two yet another chance to yell at each other? You know he's gonna clue us in eventually, so just… Keep your head down, would you? Don't go picking fights with the man when you don't have to."

Sam scowls down at his own knees.

It's a familiar admonition, one he's heard said a dozen different ways, ever since he'd started to have problems with Dad as a kid.

_"Come on Sam, why'd you have to say that?"_

_"Do what he says and he won't get mad."_

_"Just quit pissing him off, would you?"_

It may be that easy for Dean, but even then, Sam knew it couldn't work for him. Most days, it felt like he made Dad angry just by existing, and even when he tried with everything he had, he couldn't live up to whatever it was Dad wanted from him. He was never around when Dad needed him, or he was getting in the way. He talked too much, or he was being accused of sulking because wasn't talking _enough_. He was spending too much time with his head in his books, or he was being lazy. He didn't care enough about the hunt, or he was asking too many damn questions, and there was just no _winning_, because the problem wasn't what Sam did or didn't do. The problem was Sam. Once he finally figured that out, it had seemed like the best thing to do was drop out of the race entirely. Stop trying and just do things his own way.

Good luck getting Dean to understand that, though. Dean's always known the right things to say to Dad. Dean likes the same music, likes cars, likes hunting, falls into step with Dad as effortlessly as breathing. Dean's a better shot, makes a better soldier.

Dean remembers Mom.

It's not really a surprise that he's the favorite son. And Sam doesn't begrudge Dean for that, he really doesn't. He just wishes his brother wouldn't assume it's as easy for everyone else to stay in their dad's good graces as it is for him.

Truth is, right now, Sam really doesn't give a damn whether he starts a fight or not, and he's certainly not trying to play the good son. That ship sailed a long damn time ago. But if they're going to hunt with Dad, they can't be going in blind. It's too goddamn dangerous, and it's not like Sam hasn't already proven that John's perfectly capable of screwing up.

If it were up to John, they'd still be in that cabin in Chicago waiting for God-knows-what, the Colt would still be picking up dust in Daniel Elkins' safe, and they wouldn't have a single lead on this demon, so if Sam wants to second-guess John's little backwoods tour – or anything John does, at this point – he thinks he should have every right.

Sam starts from his thoughts at the trill of his phone's email alert.

"Hey, give me the phone," he demands quickly, smacking Dean on the arm when he takes too long to lift up.

"Okay, _jeez_!" Dean says. "Hold on."

Sam shoves a hand under his brother and grabs hold of his cell, ignoring the… _interesting_ faces Dean is making.

"I feel _violated_," Dean informs him emphatically as Sam hastily taps his stylus against the "Mail" icon.

Sam feels his cheeks heat but ignores it in favor of concentrating on the email from "elcazador69 " in his inbox.

He blinks in confusion when, instead of information about the demon, he's met with a security question prompt.

_Question: What's the magic word?_

_Password: __

He swears and punches in Ash's number, tapping impatiently against the footwell as it rings.

"Y'ello."

"Ash, I got your email, and it's asking me for a password," Sam tells him, groping around in the dash for a pen.

"Ahh, Winchester Numero Uno," Ash drawls. "How's it hanging?"

"Great," Sam says tersely. "Password?"

"Right," Ash says, then adds in a hushed voice. "It's encrypted. Top secret. Password is a Skynrd song, starts with an 'F.' Oh, and there's numbers instead of letters. You should know which ones."

Sam blinks.

"Your password is 'Freebird' in Leet?" he asks slowly.

Dean snorts loudly in the driver's seat.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Ash exclaims. "Don't be sayin' that shit out loud! That is highly sensitive information."

Sam can't stop himself from grinning a little.

"It's okay, Ash. The only person here is Dean, and he's such a Luddite that for all he knows 'Leet' is a dialect of Ancient Sumerian. He's probably the only person left under the age of fifty who buys his porn from a _store_," Sam tells him, and then adds: "Ow!" as Dean socks him in the arm.

"He's like a CAVEMAN," Sam says loudly as Dean pries the phone out of his hands and puts it on speaker.

"Ash," Dean says in greeting.

"_Hey_, Winchester Numero Dos! What can I do you for?"

"You—" Dean starts, then says, "Wait, why am I 'Winchester Number _Two_'?"

"'Cause I'm Number One," Sam tells him with a grin.

Dean glares at him.

"You wanna just tell us what you found while we got you on the line?" he asks Ash.

"Can do," Ash says. "The full work-up's in the mail, but long story short, you wanna find that demon? You're gonna want to get yourselves to Tennessee, pronto."

"Tennessee?"

"Yeah," Ash confirms. "That picture you sent me? It's the Tennessee State Park Association logo. So, I plugged the info into a program I've been working on and came up with a hit on three of your omens up in the mountains outside Knoxville."

"Three omens?" Dean asks, frowning. "Which are?"

There's the sound of a keyboard clacking on the other end.

"Right," Ash says. "Well, first we got your freak weather. The high this time of year's usually around the mid-eighties, but the other day? Full on snowstorm. In _July_."

"Yeah, in the mountains," Dean adds skeptically, and Sam glares at him.

"True, true, but then you've got to explain away the algae," Ash says.

He pauses significantly while Dean gives Sam a "What the fuck?" look.

"We're seeing a whole mess of lakes and rivers startin' to turn red with it," Ash elaborates. "Nobody knows what's causing it yet. Well, except yours truly, that is."

"And the third one?"

"Yeah, now, that one was hard to track down. Finally found a dude complaining on the Morgan County community message board about how the sheriff can't catch the kids who've been killing his cows. Bam! There's your cattle deaths."

Dean raises an eyebrow.

"That's… not a lot to go on, Ash."

"Not yet," the other man agrees, "but that's three out of six omens popping up in the same state you've got intel on. The laws of probability do not lie, my friend. The rest of those omens are coming. Give it a few days, and it'll be impossible to miss 'em. Then a day or two after that, you'll have another house fire on your hands, I guarantee it. I'd look at this as a head start."

"You're right, Ash," Sam says. "Thanks for your help."

"No problemo," Ash chirps. "I'll keep going through this stuff, shoot you an email if anything else comes up."

"Perfect," Sam tells him. "Man, I'm going to owe you so many orders of chili cheese fries next time we're at the Roadhouse."

"Hell yeah, you will," Ash says, grin evident in his voice. "Later."

He hangs up with a click, and Sam tugs his phone out of Dean's hand. He exits out of his email and starts typing in numbers.

"What're you doing?" Dean asks suspiciously.

"What do you think? I'm calling Dad to tell him we've got to go to Tennessee."

"Okay, hold up a second," Dean says, making a grab for the phone.

"'Hold up a second'?!" Sam parrots incredulously. "You heard Ash. We know where this thing is!"

"Based on what, exactly? A couple of dead cows, some snow, and _algae_? It's not exactly conclusive evidence, Sammy."

"What are you talking about?" Sam furrows his brow. "We _know_ what's going to happen! I _saw_ it!"

"That's my point, Sam!" Dean exclaims. "You had a vision! And outside of that, our proof is pretty damn flimsy!"

Sam stares at him, trying to process.

"So, what, you're worried Dad's not going to buy it?" he asks.

"I'm worried he's gonna be asking you when you found the time to figure out all of this crap and what makes you so sure this isn't just another wild goose chase," Dean tells him.

Sam wants to argue that the trip to Colorado wasn't a wild good chase at all, but yeah, fair. It's not like Dad knows that.

"He's just going to have to trust me," he says, sounding weak to even his own ears.

"Yeah, okay," Dean scoffs, and Sam can't say he disagrees with him.

He sighs, rubbing his fingers against the bridge of his nose.

"You're right," he says reluctantly. "I'm going to have to tell him about the visions."

"What?!" Dean starts and slams his foot on the brake, sending them both jolting forward.

Sam grunts as the seat belt catches him solidly, digging a deep groove in his hips.

"Dean, what the hell?!"

His brother looks about as surprised as Sam feels. He presses his foot to the gas again slowly and clears his throat.

"That's _not_ what I'm saying," he says with an air of forced calm. "You didn't want him to know about those, right? We decided we weren't going to mention them to him."

Sam feels like he's missed a few steps somewhere.

"We… didn't decide anything, actually," he says slowly. "I mean, yeah, I'd rather not have _anyone_ know if I can help it, and I know he's gonna be pissed we didn't tell him in the first place, but I don't really see another choice here. People are going to die."

Dean pinches his eyes shut.

"I know, I know, just—" he breathes out through his nose. "I don't think telling him's a good idea."

Sam stares, uncomprehending.

"Why? What, do you know something I don't know?" he asks, then seeing Dean's expression, "Did he _say_ something?"

Dean's face falters for half a second, but that's all Sam needs.

"He did say something, didn't he?" he demands. "About me? About my powers? Is _that_ why you've been acting so weird?"

"You've been… weird," Dean returns lamely, eyes shifting all over the car.

"Ugh, I should have known!" Sam exclaims, fighting the urge to smack himself in the forehead. "You had yourself closed up in the bathroom when I got back last night! And the _hug_? God, I'm an idiot."

Dean grimaces, still half-trying to play dumb.

"What did he say?!" Sam presses.

"Nothing!" Dean exclaims, and then, apparently noting Sam's Hellfire expression, adds: "He just- He knew about that stuff in Lawrence. I don't know how, 'cause I sure as hell didn't tell him! He wanted to know if it was still just feelings or, you know, something else."

"But you don't want me to tell him about the visions, so you…" Sam trails off, eyes going wide. "Dean, did you _lie_ to Dad?"

Guilty silence.

"Oh my God, you did! You lied to Dad! _You?!_" Sam bursts out. "Dean, what the hell were you thinking?!"

"Hey, it's not like you were all gung-ho to let the man know you've got the Shining!" Dean defends.

"Yeah, but I didn't lie about it, either! God, we are _screwed!_ How are we supposed to keep hiding this? The visions are all connected to that demon. We're _hunting_ it, Dean!"

"I know, okay?" Dean snaps. "But you weren't there! You don't know…"

"What?" Sam asks, dread pooling in his stomach. "Did he say something else?"

"No," Dean says quickly. "No, I just- I got the feeling it would be better not to clue him in on this one. That's all."

"Because he thinks it's bad," Sam finishes hollowly. "Because he was asking about it like a hunter."

Dean shakes his head.

"Dad's not going to hunt you," he says firmly. "This kind of crap just freaks him out, you know that."

Why doesn't Sam believe that it's quite that simple?

"Look," Dean starts, "I trusted you on the gun thing. You gotta back me on this one, okay?"

Sam thinks about that for a moment, brow furrowed.

"Okay?" Dean prompts.

"Yeah," Sam agrees, reluctantly. "But then how exactly are we going to convince him to drive out to Tennessee. Like you said, without the visions, we don't have much of a leg to stand on."

"I'll make it happen," Dean nods firmly, all Big Brother spine, jaw set tight.

Sam bites his bottom lip and hands him the phone.

"Okay," he says. "Make it happen."


	22. Chapter 22

A belated happy July 4th to our American readers! And thank you to everyone who read and reviewed last chapter. We love you guys!

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><p>Dean appreciates that Sam doesn't say a single "I told you so" when Dad refuses to pull over to talk for another twenty minutes.<p>

Sam sits silently in the passenger's seat, face drawn tight, eyes staring blankly as his big brain whirls away. He's so upset, so damn worried about the fact that Dad might want to put a bullet in him for going Miss Cleo, and Dean is more sure than ever that he's the scum of the Earth for doing this.

Sam trusts him. Dad trusts him, too, and Dean is lying to _both_ of them now. He should have told Sam about the demon's blood last night. He should tell him now, but he won't. Can't.

He'll find a way to convince Dad, get him off of this crazy, paranoid bender he's on and make him see sense, even if Dean has to bend the truth to get him there. They'll kill this demon, and Sam will never have to know what those bastards did to him when he was a baby, won't have to live with the knowledge that his own father thought, even for a second, that he was ever anything other than Dean's brother, and if Dean has to keep right on lying through his teeth to make it happen, well, he'll just have to live with that.

And yeah, that all sounds great in his head. Too bad it's way easier said than done, especially when Dean is by far the dullest tool in the Winchester shed. Less than twenty-four hours, and Sam's already gotten the stuff about the visions out of him.

Dean just hopes that half-truth will throw his kid brother off the scent, keep him from asking more questions, probing for any more secrets Dad and Dean might be keeping from him.

Dad finally pulls off when they reach an empty, dilapidated stretch of highway that Dean wouldn't have even recognized as a town if he hadn't spotted the crumbling sign welcoming them to Segundo, Colorado half-hidden by weeds. They drive past an old-fashioned brick building that's advertised as "Ringo's Market" on one sign and "Ringo's Super Trading Post" on another and connected to a strip of buildings in various states of decay. Running alongside what must have once been Main Street, there's an ancient, cracked sidewalk dotted with overgrown planters and rusting metal benches. Every structure left standing is flecked black with what looks like soot.

The whole town boasts what Dean would term "post-zombie apocalypse chic," and he'd peg it for completely abandoned if not for the more recently constructed, empty-looking two story across the street, identifiable as the local bar by the Budweiser sign in the window and a banner advertising the "Frank's Place Special" half-hidden under a patio cover that shelters a mismatched collection of garden benches and folding metal chairs.

They follow Dad's truck down an overgrown path branching off from the road, and Dean tries not to wince too obviously as his baby jumps and jerks over the cracked, uneven concrete. He swears as he's forced to drive over a branch and hears it snap and scrape under his feet.

Sam makes a frustrated noise from the passenger's seat, one hand braced on the dash and the other gripping the back of his seat.

"Someone needs to tell him that just because his suburban assault vehicle can handle a road doesn't mean everyone's car can," he says, lips drawn into a thin line.

"Don't start," Dean says. "And anyway, aren't you the one who's taking us mountain climbing later? 'Cause I'll tell you now, she's not gonna love that either."

Sam glowers at him but doesn't respond. Guess he doesn't have a comeback for that one.

They pull up to a long, spare building made up of concrete and red-streaked tin. There are no doors or window panes, no leftover furniture or abandoned belongings, no signs of any kind that the this structure was ever anything more than a hollow shell on a bare cement foundation. There's not even any sign of the usual detritus of broken beer bottles, cigarette butts, and used condoms Dean expects to spot in an abandoned building.

As expected of Dad, he's scoped out the perfect place: Far enough out of the way that the drunken teenagers and taggers can't be bothered to make the trip and not interesting enough to warrant the attention of hipster douchebags showing up to snap polaroids.

"I think I've got tetanus just from looking at this place," Sam says under his breath as they climb out of the car, and then louder: "Where are we?"

"Old coal camp," Dad says, shouldering his duffle. "After the last mine closed in the sixties, most of the people cleared out of town and left it to rot."

"This place looks older than that," Sam observes.

Dad nods.

"Old CF&I building, most likely," he says. "Probably from around the late twenties."

Huh. That was… oddly forthcoming. Looks like those five hours of quiet sobriety actually did their job. Dean gives his brother a covert little smile paired with an eyebrow wiggle.

"Well, at least he'll be in a good mood when you tell him," Sam says quietly once Dad's gone inside.

_Yeah. __Great_.

"Hey, Dad?" Dean tries once they've filed into the building.

"Help me get the protections set up, and then we can talk," Dad says without looking up from his bag.

In other words, "Help me get settled in before you tell me we have to leave." Goddammit.

Dean lays down salt in front of the windows and door anyway in the name of family peace. Dad emerges from his corner with a can of spray paint and a roll of duct tape, tossing the latter to Sam.

"Put this over the salt lines," he orders.

"So they won't blow away," Sam nods, actually looking a little impressed with the idea.

He follows Dean around with the tape while Dad starts spraying some kind of symbol on a section of floor that he's cleared of dirt.

"What's that?" Sam asks almost instantly, watching Dad make wide arcs in orange day-glow.

"Devil's trap," Dad grunts. "Been spending so much time with Bobby Singer, 'm surprised you don't know all about 'em."

Is it Dean's imagination or did that come out kind of bitter?

"We haven't spent _that_ much time with Bobby," Sam says baldly, "and we've barely talked to him about this case at all. Almost everything we know about hunting this demon is what you gave us."

Dad's quiet for a moment.

"If you're gonna be hunting demons, you've got to know your devil's traps," he says finally. "Get a demon inside one, and they won't be able to get out again. Makes exorcisms and interrogations a hell of a lot easier, and if you summon one, you'd sure as hell better have one of these laid down."

"Wait," Dean interjects. "You know how to summon demons?"

"If you can summon them, why are we even chasing this thing?" Sam asks. "Why not just call it here?"

Dad scowls.

"Different demons, different spells," he says briskly. "To find out the spell, you need a demon's name. Its _real_ name. Believe it or not, this thing doesn't answer to 'Yellow Eyes'."

"_Yellow_ eyes?" Dean repeats, confused.

At his elbow, Sam has gone strangely pale. Dean touches his elbow lightly, but his brother shies away, eyes trained on the pentagram Dad has been scrawling on the floor.

Now, though, their Dad is looking between them with a furrowed brow.

"That wasn't in my notes," he says more than asks.

"No," Sam says tersely. "Neither were devil's traps or summoning rituals. Anything _else_ you left out that we might need to know?"

And here's where Dad gets mad, closes off, or worse, starts yelling. Dean steels himself, but Dad just clenches his teeth.

"Nothing I can think of," he grits out, turning back to his work. "There's a copy of _The Lesser Key of Solomon_ in my truck with a list of devil's traps inside. I'll let you look over it later."

Sam blinks.

"Thank you," he says finally.

Oh fuck Dean's life, are they actually trying to get along with each other _now_?

It's going to make it that much harder to say what he's got to say. Dean promised Sam he'd do it, but he's not exactly relishing the idea that this time _he's_ got to be the one starting a fight.

Dad stands up, brushing dirt off the knees of his jeans and tossing the spray can back into his duffle, and Sam gives Dean a significant look out of the corner of his eyes.

"Dad," Dean starts gruffly.

"Right," the other man nods. "What is it you wanted to talk about?"

Dean takes a deep breath.

"I think there might be a lead on the demon," he says. "Looks like there are some omens popping up in Tennessee."

Dad's eyes go wide, then narrow.

"How do you know this?" he demands.

"Made some calls in the car," Dean tells him.

"Did you?"

He may be talking to Dean, but his eyes are trained on Sam. Dean's been avoiding using pronouns as much as possible, and he's really kind of pissed that Dad seems to have already decided to blame Sam for this anyway. Then again, it's not like there's any secret about who the research junkie is here.

"Who did you call?" Dad wants to know.

"You know, local wildlife services, county commissioners, the usual," Dean bullshits, and man, Sam is going to kick his ass later for lying about something Dad can check up on so easily.

Well, whatever. Dean's doing the best he can, here.

"And what are these signs?"

Dean tells him and does his best to make it sound way more convincing coming from his mouth than it did from Ash's. It's still not a lot, and he isn't surprised when Dad says as much.

"It may be worth looking into," he acknowledges grudgingly. "We'll bed down here for the night, and I'll check up on it, see if it's worth investigating."

"It's a twenty hour drive from here to Tennessee!" Sam protests. "If we wait that long, it may be too late!"

"Or it could be another dead end, and we'll have burned a good hideout and risked exposing ourselves for no reason," Dad snaps.

Sam draws back, nostrils flaring.

"So you'd rather make bets with these people's lives than risk exposing yourself?" he demands.

"I'd rather check the facts than waste another three days following one of your 'leads'," Dad snaps.

Dean shoulders between them before any more mud gets slung.

"Dad, I think Sam may be right," he says. "What if we miss the window on this one? It's just not worth taking the risk."

Their Dad shakes his head.

"I've already made my decision."

"Yeah, but—"

"That's final," Dad says, taking his duffle bag and stomping out of the building toward his truck.

Dean gets the impression that he wishes they had a door so he could slam it.

Sam crosses his arms and throws himself back against the wall. He raises his eyebrows at Dean, lips pursed. Now he really does look like he wants to say "I told you so."

"You just put your head in a _huge_ spider web," Dean snipes before turning and following Dad out.

This isn't over. He told Sammy he would make this happen, and he intends to follow through.

Dad's rifling through one of his boxes, face as harsh and closed off as if it were carved out of stone.

"Dad, there's nothing you could do here that you couldn't do on the drive to Tennessee," Dean reasons. "Yeah, it sucks that we wouldn't be able to use this place again, but come on, it's Colorado. Pretty sure there's more ghost towns than _actual_ towns."

John opens his mouth to protest, but Dean presses on, wants to get this all out before he loses the nerve.

"The mission is all that matters, right?" Dean says. "Saving people, hunting down that demon bastard? That's what all this is about, right? You taught us that. If this is happening again, if there's a chance we can stop it, _any _chance, we've gotta take it!"

"Dean," John says in a low voice. "It's not that simple. Your brother—"

And then his eyes are flicking over Dean's shoulder, and he goes abruptly silent, because Sam's here now, a familiar wall of heat licking at Dean's back, and he steels himself against the urge to lean against it.

He doesn't need to know what Dad was going to say. He can guess well enough from the stuff he'd heard last night, though, and it's wrong, so _so_ wrong that he doesn't even have to think about the next words that come out of his mouth.

"Look, I can't make you leave, but I'm taking Sammy and we're going to Tennessee _today_. With or without you."

Dad is looking at him like he doesn't know who Dean is, and when Dean glances back at his brother, there's a similar expression on Sam's face. He gives a little shrug at both of them, unable to back down from it now that he's said it and surprised to find he doesn't want to.

Dad shoves the box into the passenger's seat and climbs into the truck, expression stormy.

"I'll be making those calls on the way," he growls, "and if I tell you to turn back, you turn back, understand?"

Dean nods dutifully.

"And clean this damn place up before you leave," Dad snaps, slamming the door to the truck shut with as much force as he can muster.

"Yes sir."

"We're starting in Morgan County," Sam calls after the truck by way of a parting shot, and he waits until Dad's truck has gone around the corner before he turns to beam at Dean.

"Shut up," Dean says preemptively.

"Lying? Insubordination? _Blackmail_?" Sam says, grinning. "I really am having a bad influence on you, Dean! I _like_ it."

"Shut. Up," Dean repeats, elbowing his brother in the ribs when he laughs.

Dean is doing the right thing here. He refuses to feel guilty about that.

What he _does_ feel guilty about is the fleeting, traitorous thought that maybe in would have been better for all of them if Dad _had_ stayed behind.


	23. Chapter 23

We're posting a bit early today so we can get up and watch the final match of the World Cup! (It's playing at 4:00am our time. Booo.) If anybody is wondering, we're supporting Die Mannschaft all the way! But whoever you're rooting for - or if you don't care in the slightest! - we hope you enjoy this chapter. It's about time we heard more from dear old Dad...

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><p>John may be driving himself toward Tennessee, but he couldn't feel more cornered.<p>

No, not cornered.

_Trapped_.

That's the word for it, and isn't that just goddamn appropriate? Because going after the demon with incomplete information? On the say-so of someone John has every reason to suspect of working for the yellow-eyed son of a bitch himself? Hell, even if Sam is being completely genuine, even if he really believes every puppy-dog sweet sentiment he's throwing John's way, who knows where he's getting _his_ information?

Not from wildlife services, that's for damn sure. Dean isn't _that_ good of a liar.

John knows better than this.

John _is_ better than this. He's spent nearly a year flying under the radar, keeping himself hidden from Yellow Eyes, all of his disciples, and every hunter who cared to look for him, his own sons included.

But this? This is just flying in the face of Fate, and she's already shown herself to be one spiteful bitch where John's concerned.

He wants to be angry at Dean for forcing his hand, but even John's not enough of a bastard that he can't admit when the boy is right. It's true. This is exactly what John trained them to do: Put everything on hold for the hunt, risk it all to help people, fight through the pain and fear to kill the bad guy, and be ready to fall on their swords if it came to that.

Years ago, before a hundred accumulated slights and a rifle full of buckshot had driven them apart for the final time, Bobby Singer had dressed him down for that.

"Dammit, John," he'd said. "I can't stop you from teaching 'em to hunt, but for the love of God, at least teach 'em to hunt _smart_."

John would rather be drawn and quartered than admit it out loud, but he's been thinking lately that maybe Bobby was right. At least if he did that, his sons might not be so ready and willing to dive headfirst into every trap this demon sets for their family.

But then again, maybe John isn't one to preach about concepts like self-preservation. As far as family traits go, the Winchesters don't have that particular one in spades.

Stubbornness, though? Yeah, there's plenty of that. This is far from the first time John's seen that trait from Dean, but it is the first time he's had his oldest's particularly fierce brand of loyalty turned on _him_.

It would have shocked the hell out of the John a year ago, but now? Well, it fits the pattern he's been observing over the past few days to a T. The way Dean is drawing away from John and toward his brother. This new attitude of his, the way he's started to dig in his heels, to buck John's orders in favor of Sam's…

In the beginning, in that sharp gush of disgust and horror, he'd been almost sure it meant that the same poison curdling in Sam's veins had infected Dean, too, and the thought that he'd already lost them both, that he hadn't been able to protect them – any of them – in spite of everything had almost been enough to bring him to his knees.

But he's been watching Dean, watching both of them, and no matter how he looks at it, there's nothing he can find that points to this being anyone other than his son, his Dean.

It's a version of Dean with more scars than John left him with, a version with conspicuously less of that unshakable faith in his father that John has always taken for granted, and worst of all, a Dean who still has several pints of demon's blood pumping through his veins, doing God knows what.

But it's still Dean.

After all, the Dean John knows wouldn't need supernatural influence to fall into Sam's gravitational pull like this. Dean's always had a weak spot a mile wide for his little brother. Dean, solicitous and loyal, holding Sammy's hand and hefting him up into his arms far past the point when it stopped being necessary and turned into spoiling the kid rotten. Dean, who's been shoving his way between John and Sam since Sam hit puberty, who'd pleaded the case for every one of Sam's whims from soccer to prom, whether he thought they were good ideas or not. Who volunteered to break the news to Sam about every move and every unscheduled PT session, all too willing to take the brunt of Sam's frustration if it meant keeping him out of another fight with John.

Dean, who's gotten himself into more than his fair share of trouble over the years because of his habit of letting his fists fly the second some poor, dumb sucker so much as looked at Sam sideways.

He'd been eleven the first time John had gotten that particular call, a few years away from having the control to at least wait until he was off school property before knocking someone's teeth out.

The other kid was half Dean's size, the principal had told John indignantly.

"Still bigger than Sammy," was all Dean had to say about that.

John had looked at the blood drying on his knuckles, at the hard and utterly unapologetic look on his face, and realized for the first time that he'd spent the last seven years training this boy to be the perfect killer and just what that could mean if he wasn't careful.

And John sees it with perfect clarity now. He'd thought he knew Dean inside out, had raised him, taught him everything he knew, but he'd still made the exact same mistake as all those bruised and battered bullies and dead-meat monsters Dean has left in his wake: He'd tried to wedge himself between Dean and Sam.

The worst part is that John himself had encouraged that bond between them. He'd fostered Dean's protectiveness, had believed that the closeness between his sons would make them a united front, better soldiers in his war against the things that go bump in the night, but he'd never imagined that Dean's affection for Sam could ever be stronger than his loyalty to John. He'd never doubted for a second that once Dean knew what Sam was, once Dean understood the stakes, he'd fall in line. He'd stop looking at John with those suspicious eyes, trigger finger twitching every time John got too close to Sam. After all, Dean is supposed to be the one who listens to John, who respects him, who would follow him into Hell itself if John needed him to.

Twenty-seven years, and he guesses he's finally asked too much, finally found the line Dean won't let him cross.

John just hopes against hope that this misstep won't be the thing that gets Dean killed.

His cellphone goes off in his pocket, sound piercing and shrill in the silence of the cabin. Déjà vu slams into him like a truck, and remembering Chicago, he digs his phone out of his jeans as quickly as possible.

It's just Ellen.

He wants to block her call like usual, but he's all too aware that this one could be serious. It's only been a day since he'd rolled through town, and it wouldn't be the first time the demons nipping at his heels had taken it out on the people who've helped him.

He'd been thinking about his own son's safety when he'd busted down the door to the Roadhouse. Never spared a thought for Bill's wife and their little girl until it was too late.

There's another strike against Sam's plans, if John feels like keeping score.

He flips the phone open.

"Anybody dead?" he asks without prelude.

"Yeah, John, me," Ellen's tinny voice sneers. "I'm phonin' in from the afterlife to call you an asshole. The hell?"

She's fine. Of course she's fine. Woman like Ellen Harvelle's too tough to leave this world before she's good and goddamn ready. Bill used to joke that she ate nails for breakfast and liked to wash 'em down with a grown man's tears.

He'd been so in love with her. _Christ_.

"You come kickin' down my door and swingin' your piece around at everybody in sight," Ellen continues irritably. "Eatin' my food, drinkin' my booze, and not sayin' a word of thanks. I swear, John Winchester, you must've been raised in a goddamn barn."

"You call for a _reason_, El?" John asks, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.

"Ttch," Ellen scoffs. "What'd I just say? Those boys of yours got better manners than you, and Lord knows where they got 'em from."

John snorts. His boys are a lot of things, but well-behaved isn't exactly one that comes to mind.

"They just hadn't warmed up to you yet," he says.

"Mmhm," Ellen intones knowingly. "Go ahead and bring 'em back by sometime. I bet I could handle 'em."

Oh, John thinks, no doubt about that.

"Girls," Ellen presses on. "Girls are the hard ones. You men have no clue."

John can hear the sound of glasses clinking on the other end of the line. He imagines Ellen stomping around her kitchen, cordless pressed to her ear while she preps for the nighttime rush.

"Problems, Ellen?" he asks.

There's a sound of pans smacking together and a faucet running on the other end.

"That's one way to put it," she grumbles. "I swear, there's been no livin' with Jo since yesterday. She's been stomping around, pouting like she's sixteen again and I just threatened to shoot her prom date. Just keeps going on about how she wants to be a hunter like her Daddy. Even spent last night sleepin' in that old RV of his."

The sounds on the other end stop, and Ellen sighs.

"And y'know?" she says. "I think that's the closest you've gotten in ten years to askin' me how I'm doing."

John has nothing to say to that.

"I don't blame you for what happened, John," Ellen says after a beat.

"Yeah, you do," John tells her.

_And if you don't, you should_, he thinks.

John's seen a lot of death in his time, but Bill's is one he could never seem to shake, could never drink enough to forget those wide eyes trained on his gun, that bloody mouth begging him to _help me, John, please, I gotta be okay, I gotta go home, I got a family, John, no please__DON'T_—

"How the hell would you know?" Ellen says. "Not like you waited to find out. Just got as far away as you could and never looked back. I lost my _husband_, John. I never occurred to you that maybe I coulda used a shoulder to lean on?"

John tries to quiet the familiar feeling of guilt squirming in his stomach.

"Heard you got Bobby Singer for that now," he says dryly. "Seems like he can't wait to take over for me lately."

"Go to Hell, John," Ellen snaps. "The way I heard it, he was just picking up your slack. Tell you what, you wanna be the one people lean on? How 'bout you try picking up the goddamn phone sometime?"

"I did," John grumbles, "and I'm regretting it more and more by the minute. Mind if I ask again why you called?"

"Why do you think?" Ellen asks brusquely. "Because I know what kind of trouble you're in. And because in spite of your very best efforts, I still think of us as friends."

"I don't need your help, Ellen."

"Well, that's too damn bad," she says. "'Cause you're getting my help whether you like it or not."

"I won't let you get involved in this," John tells her.

_I won't get you killed. Not you too._

"I'm already involved," Ellen retorts. "And if you don't like it, I guess you'll just have to come around here and stop me."

John is silent.

"You know what I really hate about you, John?" Ellen says finally. "It's not that you're a stubborn old bastard. It's that you're such a goddamn _coward_."

She hangs up with a click.

John flips his phone shut and throws it down onto the passenger's seat with more force than is strictly necessary.

He's getting enough shit from his own kids. He doesn't need it from Ellen goddamn Harvelle, too. She may mean well enough, but as far as he's concerned, Bobby Singer's welcome to her.

At least he has a pretty good guess now about where Sam's been getting his information.

He's getting Ellen's help whether he likes it or not, huh?

Well, if that suspicion is true, at least it's better than having Sam ring up Singer again, and it's a damn sight better than finding out he picked it up from a broadcast on demon radio.

Still doesn't mean this isn't a trap. Doesn't mean that bringing Sam anywhere near Yellow Eyes isn't paining a big red target on their backs, either.

John needs more information about the demon's blood, and he needs it _yesterday_. He has to know for sure what it means for Dean, and even more importantly, what it means for Sam. He needs to know what Sam can do, what Sam _is_.

If Sam can be saved.

If Sam exists at all.

God, how is John supposed to live with this? How is he supposed cope with the idea that Sam – little Sammy with the dimples and the monsters under his bed that only John could scare away – might never have been his at all? And would it be worse to find out that it is true, to have given Dean a black-eyed cuckoo to carry out of that fire, than it would be to find out that it _isn't_? To be forced to watch as the demon's blood infects Sam from the inside out anyway, changing him into a monster, into another tool for Mary's killer to use against him? To have to put a bullet in his own son's head and to keep soldiering on afterwards, shouldering the weight of Sam along with Mary and Bill Harvelle and so many others?

John has been walking through hells since he was four years old, every one of them worse than the last, and somehow he's still going. He's strong, stronger now than he ever knew he'd have to be.

He may not be strong enough for this.

The Impala has caught up with him now, and John can see his sons clearly in the rearview mirror. They're talking, Dean's eyes watching his brother more than he's watching the road. He says something, mouth fixed in that cocky half-grin, and Sam dimples up and laughs out loud, throws his head back and claps his hands together like whatever's been said is the funniest thing in the world.

In a strange way, John thinks, it makes it worse to see Sam like this. It's so much easier to deal with everything John knows about the demon's blood and the Yellow-Eyed Demon's children when Sam is angry, eyes hard and voice raised, picking at every one of John's nerves like it's his mission in life.

But like this? When Sam is so much more John's little boy than he is that angry near-stranger who was waiting for him at Stanford? The weight of everything John knows feels like it could crush him, threatens to drive the breath right out of his lungs.

John breathes out slow. He reaches up and turns the mirror to the left so he doesn't have to see Sam at all, and he thinks, yeah, maybe Ellen's right.

Maybe he is a coward.


	24. Chapter 24

It takes them almost half a day of driving before Dad finally decides to pull off for the night.

As much as Sam wants to push on, to keep going hard and fast until he's got that demon on the other end of the Colt and his finger on the trigger, he knows it's better if they pace themselves. Sam and Dean could make the drive overnight just fine, but John doesn't have anyone to take the wheel while he rests his eyes in the passenger's seat. And sure, at this point, it might benefit all three of them to have some time apart, but not a single one of them will suggest it.

Sam definitely won't. He hates to admit it, but they do need Dad. His little show-and-tell session with the devil's trap earlier is proof enough that there's still plenty he's holding back, whether it's things he expects Sam and Dean to already know or stuff he just doesn't think is important.

Like the demon's yellow eyes.

Sam shudders at the memory of those eyes staring into him, those whispered words.

"_You're my favorite."_

Sam isn't sure how, but he knows with absolute certainty who those words were meant for.

They were for him. Are for him.

Will be for him.

He doesn't know what the words mean, not exactly, but he knows it means that Sam himself will be in that house. That he'll be face to face with this demon, close enough to look it in the eyes, and _soon_.

It means that this is it.

Sam swore a long time ago that, when he finally did find Jess' killer, only one of them would be walking away. He has every intention of being the one to survive, to walk away from that bastard's corpse and away from Dad, and to take Dean with him. To head toward the light at the end of this deep, dark tunnel, toward somewhere they both belong, somewhere they can finally be happy and safe. A place where he and Dean can build something together – a _life_, a real one – whatever that looks like.

If that's still possible, if it's even something his brother wants after everything he's learned about Sam. Everything he _hasn't_ learned about Sam, but could, _God_, could so easily if Sam isn't careful.

He glances over at Dean's face, watches the lights and shadows play on his brother's profile and hopes he's ready for whatever's coming in Tennessee, hopes it desperately, because honestly, he's never felt weaker.

"What?" Dean asks after a second.

"Nothing," Sam lies promptly. "Tired, I guess."

"Well, you're in luck," Dean says, gesturing towards John's truck, its blinker flickering in the darkness. "Looks like the man's finally run out of steam."

Sam's pretty sure Dad was just holding out until they got to a part of Arizona that wasn't a dry county, but he decides to keep quiet about that suspicion.

The place John has chosen to set up camp for the night turns out to be a sketchy motel in North Little Rock artfully named the "Budgetel."

"Forty-five bucks a night," Dean observes as they emerge from the Impala, gravel crunching under their boots.

"Yeah, and they'll even throw in the bedbugs for free!" Sam smarms back, all fake enthusiasm.

Dean makes a face at him, but Sam is the one who gets the last laugh when Dad comes back with the key to the room and it turns out that what the Budgetel lacks in bedbugs, it more than makes up for in mold and a broken air conditioner. Right in the middle of _July_.

Not that Sam's actually laughing, because the second Dad slinks out the door (to go sniff out the nearest bar, Sam's sure), Dean is wiggling out of his clothes like he's getting paid.

Sam's really not sure what he did to deserve this.

"Jesus Christ, I'm fucking roasting in here," Dean grumbles, pacing the length of the room in his boxers and tossing the bundle of discarded clothing on top of his duffel.

"That's what you get for wearing three layers and a leather jacket in summer," Sam tells him, trying to look unaffected despite the fact that he can already feel sweat sluicing down his neck to soak the collar of his polo.

"Whatever," Dean scoffs. "I'm hitting the shower. Get us some ice, would ya?"

The walk from the room to the ice machine humming loudly down the corridor feels a little bit like a walk to the gallows. Maybe Sam should have listened to all of Dean's talks about the perils of sexual frustration and how Sam was going to get himself "backed up" if he didn't take care of it, he thinks bitterly as he shoves the plastic trowel into the ice with a crunch. Then again, no matter how long the dry spell, Sam's pretty sure most people wouldn't end up turning their lust onto their own brother.

He drops the bucket of ice onto the table, studiously blocking out the sounds of Dean's shower in favor of booting up his laptop a safe distance away from the quickly spreading pool of condensation.

Sam may be more into guys than he advertises, and he may be having some unprecedented issues keeping it in his pants, but he can handle it. He has this under control.

And because the universe apparently has nothing better to do that play cruel jokes on Sam, Dean emerges from the bathroom in nothing but a towel and immediately plunges his fist into the bag and rubs a handful of ice on himself.

While moaning. Loudly.

"Can you cut that out?" Sam snips at him, hammering away at his laptop keys.

"Sorry, am I bothering you?" Dean asks innocently, batting his eyes.

He does a truly grotesque imitation of a sexy face while he rubs ice cubes over his nipples and groans obscenely.

Yeah, Sam should've seen that one coming. Siblings 101: Never let your brother know anything annoys you. It's basically asking for him to keep doing it.

He scowls at the Google homepage.

"Seriously, do you mind? I'm trying to concentrate here."

Dean snorts.

"Man, you really need to loosen up."

He drops the half-melted clump of ice down Sam's collar and crouches down to dig through his bag while Sam swears and paws at the neck of his shirt.

"Let's get out of here," Dean says, pulling on a black t-shirt. "I need some air conditioning, pronto."

Sam turns away before his brother drops the towel.

"No, thanks," he says casually. "Think I'm gonna stay here and do some more research."

"What? Dude, just bring your laptop to the bar."

"Don't really feel like doing the bar thing tonight," Sam responds with a shrug.

Dean, thankfully wearing pants this time, walks around the table into Sam's line of sight to frown at him.

"Sam, it's like the freakin' Mohave in here."

"It's not that hot," Sam lies baldly.

"Are you _serious_?"

"Yeah," Sam tells him. "Feels fine to me."

He does his best to keep a straight face, pretend he can't feel the way his shirt is starting to stick to his shoulder blades and underarms, moisture soaking the roots of his hair.

Dean stares.

"God, you are some kind of genetic freak," he says after a moment, and Sam tries not to wince. "Seriously, are you sure you don't wanna come?"

"I'm sure."

Dean grabs his jacket – because he's apparently as much of a masochist as Sam is – and his keys, before pausing at the door.

"I'm just going down the block," he says. "I'll come back by and pick you up if you change your mind."

"Thanks, but I'm not going to."

"O-_kay_," Dean intones, squinting at him suspiciously before he turns to leave.

Once Sam hears the rumble of the Impala leaving the parking lot and has checked out the window to confirm Dean isn't anywhere nearby, he darts back to his computer, hastily typing out a search for gay bars in North Little Rock.

He clicks on the first one that comes up and scrolls down their gif-cluttered Geocities page until he finds an address. It's a straight shot down Main Street from the motel, probably a fifteen or twenty minute walk. Not bad at all.

Sam closes out of the webpage before compulsively clearing his history and then his cookies, even though he's pretty sure the only kind of cookies Dean's ever heard of are the kind that go in your mouth. He's not taking any more risks here.

This is risky enough already.

He shucks off his clothes and digs around in his suitcases until he finds the closest thing he's got to nice underwear and a pair of jeans that usually lives at the bottom of his suitcase until laundry day because they're just a little too tight. After a few seconds of deliberation, he nabs one of Dean's gray henleys and pulls that on, too. He applies a couple of layers of deodorant, goes into the bathroom and runs a wet comb through his hair in a losing battle against looking stupidly sweaty. He leaves Ellen's anti-possession amulet around his neck, because current circumstances not-withstanding, he isn't an idiot. He feels a little awkward with the pentagram knocking around against his clavicle, unhidden by his usual layers, but whatever. If Dean can pull off the man-jewelry thing, so can Sam.

He stares at himself in the mirror and grimaces.

This is really stupid. Really, really stupid. He shouldn't even be _thinking_ about trying this with both Dad and Dean in town. But he's got to work off this tension somehow, and it isn't going to be pressed up against his big brother's hip under the covers or in the shower, trying desperately not to think about freckled hands and the smell of old leather while he touches himself. Not again.

That shit stops now.

He leaves a scribbled note for Dean on top of his laptop, on the slim chance that his brother makes it back before he does.

_Went for a walk. Got my phone. Be back later._

There. Definitely casual. Responsible, even.

But who is he kidding? If Dean comes back before Sam gets back, he's going to flip out no matter what Sam says. His best bet is to just get this over with and make it back before his brother calls it a night himself.

Dean's got a lot of bikers to scam, a lot of beers to drink, and nothing but a dirty and oppressively hot motel room to come home to. Sam figures he's got pretty good odds on this one.

The sun has gone down, but the heat is like a wall pressing in on Sam from all sides, and by the time he's made the trek from the Budgetel to the bar, all of Sam's attempts to look scrubbed clean and styled have fallen through. His forehead is damp with sweat and a glance at himself in the window shows that his hair has curled even more than usual in the humidity.

This was such a bad idea.

He shifts from foot to foot outside of the bar – Sidetracks – for a minute or so, debating whether he should just turn back around and go back to the hotel, before a car goes whizzing past, and he remembers why standing outside a gay bar on Main Street with a contemplative look on his face might not be a great plan.

He checks over his shoulder one last time for the Impala or Dad's truck before hurrying inside.


	25. Chapter 25

Most of the literature in the entranceway to the bar is targeted towards bears and leather daddies, and Sam is mildly concerned before he gets a look around and finds that not only is this place not some kind of fetish club, but it isn't exactly jam-packed either. There's only a handful of men inside, most of them gathered around a single booth, talking and laughing loudly under a painted mural of what Main Street must have looked like in the sixties. There are a couple of stragglers having beers by their lonesome at the bar, where a bartender dressed in denim overalls and a fur vest is trying to entice them into conversation with limited success.

The hook-up idea is looking less and less likely by the minute, Sam thinks with less regret than he might expect.

He pulls up a seat at the bar anyway, smiling pleasantly when the bartender turns to greet him.

"Hey, there," the man says. "I don't recognize you."

"First time," Sam tells him, sliding his I.D. across the countertop for his perusal. "Um, can I just get one of whatever you've got on tap?"

"Sure," the bartender replies pleasantly, turning around to get the beer and then craning his neck to continue the conversation. "So what's your name?"

"It's Sam."

"Well, nice to meet you, Sam! I'm Phil, the owner. You new in town?"

"I'm just passing through," Sam tells him, accepting the glass and taking a long swallow.

"Well, that's too bad," Phil says. "We're usually busier than this, but Tuesday's not our best night. Trying to get some things started during the week to fix that, though."

He gestures towards a white board over Sam's shoulder that lists a handful of special events including a weekly drag show, Jeopardy Mondays, a potluck, and an upcoming Military Fetish Night.

"You going to be in town long?"

"Just tonight, sorry," Sam says.

"Too bad," Phil repeats, shaking his head.

Sam takes another big gulp, scanning the room for anyone who looks unattached and semi-palatable.

"I like your necklace," Phil says, gesturing to the pentacle. "You into that occult stuff?"

Sam shrugs.

"A little."

"You came to the right place, then," Phil tells him with a wide grin. "Did you know that Sidetracks is Arkansas' only authenticated paranormal phenomena bar?"

"I did not know that," Sam says with carefully schooled features.

_And where exactly do you go to get that authenticated?_ he wonders.

"That's right," Phil continues. "People have been reporting ghostly activity here since as early as the 1920s."

"Wasn't the place _built_ in twenty-nine, Phil?" an amused voice asks over Sam's shoulder. "What is this, Indian burial ground?"

Sam turns his head. The speaker is a man who looks to be in his mid to late twenties. He's tall, probably almost as tall as Sam himself, with a shock of gelled-up ginger hair and a scatter of freckles stretching across his broad nose and down his neck to pepper his muscular forearms.

"Give me two shots of tequila, would ya?" he asks the bartender, settling down onto the stool next to Sam.

Sam gives him a nod in greeting and takes another swallow of his beer.

"You gotta watch out for Phil," the guy says in a loud, fake whisper. "He'll talk your head off. See, he's really into the idea of this place being, like, Cheers for queers. You know, where _everybody_ knows your name."

Phil shakes his head with a good-natured grin.

"I do know everybody's name," he says, setting the shots down on the bar. "Hell, I know their shoe sizes."

"I'm Matt. And a size twelve, if you were wondering," the guy tells Sam with a wink, once the bartender has left them alone. He slides one of the shots over to Sam. "You looked like you needed a save."

"Thanks," Sam says, toying with the glass.

Matt gives him a grin, eyes tracing him up and down. He raises the shot toward Sam with an eyebrow wiggle and then swallows it down, freckled throat bobbing.

By the time Matt sticks the slice of lime between his plush, pink lips, Sam's already sold. He takes his own shot quickly, feeling the familiar burn as the alcohol sliding down his throat, already making him feel light and floaty and way, way better about this whole idea.

"Want one more?" Matt asks him, watching with twinkling blue eyes as Sam sets the glass down on the bar with slow care.

"Yeah, sure," he says.

It can't hurt.

"Kind of a cheap drunk, aren't ya?" Matt says after Sam has finished two shots and the rest of the beer and can't seem to get his barstool to stop moving under him.

"M'not," Sam slurs sullenly.

"You're a big guy, too," Matt continues. "I figured I'd be buying you drinks for at least an hour before you stopped looking like you were ready to bolt. I'm kind of embarrassed for you."

"Had an empty stomach," Sam grouches. "Jerk."

Matt laughs, but he doesn't call Sam a bitch.

Of course he doesn't. Why would he?

"Need to walk it off, there, chief?" Matt jokes when Sam tries to turn back to the bar and nearly spills off onto the carpet. "We can go play ghost hunters upstairs if you want. Unless it's too spooky for ya."

Sam snorts.

"This place is not haunted."

Matt cranks an eyebrow.

"Oh, yeah? How can you be so sure?" he asks with a grin.

Sam smirks at him.

"'Cause I'm psychic," he says definitively.

_And because I checked my EMF reader while you were ordering the second round of shots._

Matt chuckles.

"Psychic, huh? Like Ghost Whisperer?"

Sam shakes his head emphatically, even though it makes him feel kind of queasy.

"I can see the future," he confides in a hushed voice.

"Yeah?" Matt asks merrily. "Well, then let me ask you: How do you see the rest of this night going?"

Sam is slightly too tipsy and altogether too bad at flirting to come up with a response to that. Luckily, Matt seems to have him covered there. He slides a hand over Sam's knee and leans in closer.

"Want me to tell you what I think?"

Sam just nods stupidly. Matt moves in closer until his lips are grazing Sam's ear, hot puff of breath tickling his cheek. He spells like spearmint and cigarettes.

"I think you and me are gonna get out of here," he whispers. "I think we're gonna go get a room somewhere, and then I'm gonna fuck you into the mattress."

He presses his lips against a spot behind Sam's ear that sends a pleasant thrill down his spine.

"That sound good?"

The hand on Sam's knee gives a gentle squeeze. It's a nice hand, big and freckled with blunt, square nails. Sam likes it.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "Yeah, it does."


	26. Chapter 26

Hey, guys! Just so you know, this? This is the sex chapter. Yes, indeed, there are some sexy, sexy times to be had this week. And if you don't want to read that, you certainly don't have to. But you really, really should.

* * *

><p>They get as far as the parking lot before Matt is backing Sam up against his car (a blue Toyota Camry, and if Sam was imagining him as more of a classic car kind of guy, that doesn't have to mean anything). He captures Sam's mouth in a languid kiss, gets a hand in his hair and slides his tongue in to press it against the tip of Sam's with a little kitten lick that makes Sam's toes curl.<p>

It feels nice, really nice, but Sam straightens up and pulls his head out of Matt's grasp.

"Can we get out of here?" he asks.

Matt takes a step back.

"Why? You got someone who doesn't need to see you here?"

For the first time, his jovial demeanor has slipped away, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"My family," Sam tells him truthfully.

Matt relaxes.

"Yeah, okay, I get it," he says. "I was afraid you were going to say you were married or something! Done that dance before. _Way_ too much drama."

He walks around the car and clicks the unlock button on his keychain.

"Come on, let's get out of here."

Sam struggles with the door handle for a few seconds, coordination alcohol-deadened, before Matt reaches over from the driver's side and pushes it open for him. He doesn't say anything, just watches Sam as lurches into his seat and begins struggling with the seatbelt with mild amusement.

If Sam were in Matt's situation, he'd be pretty worried if the person he was about to sleep with wasn't even sober enough to get into a car by themselves, but Matt doesn't say a word, just puts the car in drive and pulls onto Main.

Sam is completely aware of what he's doing, consent issues barely a twinkle on the horizon, but it does make him wonder what kind of person this guy is. He knows nothing about Matt, absolutely nothing, but Sam's still trusting him enough to let him drive them to some random motel, to take Sam's clothes off and get inside him. It feels like there's something wrong with that.

Yeah, this is exactly why Dean is the one who does the one night stands and Sam stays at home with his laptop.

"So what do you do?" Sam asks abruptly.

Matt looks at him out of the corner of his eye, smile tugging at his lips.

"I'm a software engineer," he says.

That's a lie. Even drunk, Sam's had enough experience with witnesses to sniff that out.

At least he didn't say he was an astronaut.

"I think this place might be good," Matt tells him, gesturing to a sign for the Super 8 Motel. "Never been there before, though, so no promises."

Lie.

His hand is back on Sam's knee, doing a slow slide up his thigh, fingers playing at the seam of Sam's jeans. Sam shivers, lets Matt kiss him long and deep before he goes and gets them a room.

Once they're inside, Matt is back at his mouth, hands skimming from Sam's hips up over his chest, stripping off Dean's shirt and throwing it blindly behind them. Sam gives back as good as he gets, stripping the other man out of his t-shirt so he can get his hands on those broad, bare shoulders and dig in his fingers as Matt moves from his mouth to attack his neck.

Sam shoves him back before he can leave a mark, keeps pushing until Matt's knees hit the bed and he sinks down. Sam straddles him, knees pressed tight against the other man's hips. He grabs Matt's face between his hands, yanks it upwards so he can kiss him again, grinding down with a rasp of denim on denim.

This is the part Sam likes. This part is easy, when Sam can just turn off his brain, stop worrying about demons and his dad and Dean, and just _feel_.

He works Matt's jeans open, shoves his hand into the other man's underwear, dragging his fingers over a sharp, smooth cut of hip before getting a hand on his dick.

"Yeah," Matt groans hot against his mouth. "Get it out."

For once, Sam is more than happy to do what he's told. He shift his weight up so Matt can hastily wiggle out of his jeans and boxer briefs, then settles back down. He gives Matt's cock a few pumps, watches with hooded eyes as the purpling head slides through his fist, a drop of precome beading at the slit.

Matt groans appreciatively, hips shifting, and Sam's already halfway to the floor by the time he manages to grunt out: "God, yeah, _suck it_."

Sam doesn't need to be told twice. He gets the base of Matt's dick firmly in his fist then drags his tongue against the underside, re-familiarizing himself with the taste. It's been a long time since he did this, but that doesn't tamper his enthusiasm. In fact, it almost makes it better.

Sam curls his lips over his teeth and slips his mouth over Matt's cock. He lets it sit for a moment, heavy on his tongue, before he ramps up the suction, draws all the way back until the tip slips out with an obscene slurp.

Matt lets out a sound that's halfway between a swear and a gasp, and Sam smirks to himself for a second before he gets his mouth back on it, licking and sucking with determination. He uses his free hand to press against Matt's stomach, pushing until he's lying flat on the bed, hard abs quivering under Sam's palm.

Sometimes Sam thinks he likes oral even more than actual fucking. He loves listening to the sounds of someone undone because of him, loves feeling their every tremble and groan thrum through his own body. Loves holding them open, dragging them thrashing to the edge of pleasure, loves being the one to choose when to keep them dancing there and when to push them over. He loves going down on girls, making them come over and over again until they're soaked, trembling and ready for Sam to slide inside as easy as a knife through butter. He loves doing it to guys, likes keeping them on the edge while he fingers himself, sucking them long and hard until they think they just can't take any more, then climbing onto their laps and sinking right down on their dicks.

Speaking of which.

"Don't come yet," he says, pulling off of Matt's cock.

"Shit," Matt hisses. "Okay, then you need to stop."

He fists the hair at the base of Sam's skull, drags him up until they're pressed chest to chest and kisses him again while he shoves Sam's pants and underwear down and off of his legs. He palms at Sam's ass, rocking his hips so their cocks drag against each other, and now it's Sam's turn to make the happy sounds.

Matt pulls away, head thumping against the mattress with a frustrated groan.

"Hold on, I gotta get the stuff," he says, wiggling out from under Sam to dig through his pants pockets.

Sam doesn't move, just props himself up on his elbows and knees and tries to slow the pounding of his heart.

Matt's hands are back on him then, palms dragging up the backs of his thighs to press into the globes of his ass, squeezing his cheeks together before pulling them gently apart, one lube-slicked knuckle playing against Sam's hole.

"This isn't your first time or somethin', is it?" Matt asks quietly.

"No," Sam answers, forehead mushed up against the bedspread.

Matt hums.

"You're just kind of tense," he says, pressing a kiss against the base of Sam's spine. "_Relax_."

Sam does his best, shuts his eyes and breathes out slowly like he remembers, and then there's a finger sliding inside of him, a gentle drag in and out making his insides tremble.

It always feels strange at first – maybe Sam never did it enough times to _really_ get used to it – but it's a good strange, a foreign kind of pleasure that makes Sam bite his lip and shuffle his hips backwards, asking for more without words.

By the time Matt's got three fingers inside of him, Sam's dripping with sweat. Matt was gentle at first, but he's really getting into it now, thrusting his fingers in and out like he's already fucking Sam, nipping at Sam's shoulders with his teeth. Sam can't seem to close his mouth, every shove drawing another breathy groan. His arms and legs are trembling from the effort to hold himself up, hips churning against Matt's fist. Matt's a talker, keeps grunting about how good Sam looks, about how slutty he sounds, and God, Sam doesn't care, he just wants Matt to _give_ it to him.

"You ready?" the other man asks finally.

His middle finger grazes against Sam's prostate on an out-stroke, and Sam makes a high, desperate noise, nods frantically against the mattress.

Matt pulls his fingers out of Sam to roll on the condom, and Sam uses the time to wiggle onto his back, limbs sprawled haphazardly. Matt tugs him down the bed, uses his big hands to splay Sam's thighs, shuffling on his knees until he's positioned himself in the V of Sam legs.

Sam looks up at him and thinks that, with his eyes half-closed and the dim florescent glow of the lamp at the Matt's back, he could really be anybody. Sam reaches out for him, arms spread wide and hands groping, and stares at the blurry scattering of freckles on his cheek while they kiss.

The other man rolls his hips, and then he's pushing inside Sam, a slow but irresistible force opening Sam up. The muscles in Sam's thighs jump and shudder, but he's pinned down, spread wide, can't do anything but _take it_.

He keens when Matt bottoms out, gets a bruising grip the other man's biceps as he rocks his hips against Sam's ass, slow at first, then faster, harder and harder until Sam is bouncing on the mattress with the force of it, making it creak in protest, making the headboard smack against the wall, and Sam can feel the pleasure building, can't stop himself from crying out over and over, little "ah, ah, ah"s getting louder with every teeth-rattling thrust—

And then the door to the room burst open with a _crash_ and something is dragging Matt off of Sam, right _out_ of him, and Sam cries out in shock and pain. He hears the all too familiar sound of a gun being cocked and scrambles for some kind of weapon, anything, before he hears the voice, so twisted with fury that Sam barely recognizes it:

"Get the hell away from my brother!"


	27. Chapter 27

Dean has never been this angry in his life. He didn't know the expression "seeing red" could be literal, but when he busts down that door and sees some man naked on top of his little brother, it's like he's suddenly looking at the world through blood-tented cellophane, black creeping in on the sides as if he's staring down a long tunnel.

He's barely aware of what he's doing, overwhelmed by a rush of rage filling him so quickly that he feels like he's going to burst out of his own skin, feels dizzy and sick with it. He's got the bastard off of Sam and onto his knees before he realizes he's drawn his gun, hands shaking so hard he can barely aim. He can hear himself yelling something, but he doesn't know what it is, can't think, his pulse pounding so hard he can feel it in his temples. All he knows is that he's going to _kill_ this guy.

"Dean, what are you doing?!" Sam is exclaiming, his voice equal parts indignant and terrified. "Dean, stop it! Stop!"

He grabs Dean's wrist, trying to wrench the gun away, and Dean struggles with him, has already drawn back his fist to hit Sam before he realizes what he's doing. He squeezes his eyes shut, heart still hammering, swirls of white exploding behind his eyes. When he opens them, the red has receded, but he's still shaking, gun clenched so tight in his fist that his knuckles are bone white.

"Get him out of here," he grits out, and his brother must see the murder in his eyes, because Sam is dragging the guy out of the room as fast as he can, doesn't even let him stop to grab his clothes before Sam shoves him right out the door and locks it behind him.

"Dean," Sam pants out. "What are you _doing_ here?"

He's naked, hair mussed, eyes wild, and Dean stares, feeling hollowed out and strange, that terrifyingly intense rage gone as quickly as it came. He feels like he might pass out, sinks down slowly onto the bed, brain trying to catch up with what just happened.

"You were acting weird," he says slowly. "Then I came back and you were gone..."

"So you tracked me down?!" Sam demands. He snatches up a gray shirt from the floor and uses it to cover himself while he searches for his boxers. "Are you crazy?! You busted in the door and pulled a gun on my hook-up!"

_I thought he was hurting you._

Dean is starting to feel less numb and more pissed – normal pissed, not full-on berserker fury – by the second.

"You snuck out of our hotel to go hook up with some _dude?!_"

What the hell? Seriously. What. The. Hell?! If Sam wasn't wearing his anti-possession charm (and _just_ his anti-possession charm, _Jesus_), Dean would be yelling "Christo" right now.

Sam looks cornered. He winces and opens his mouth, but whatever he's going to say is interrupted by the sound of approaching sirens.

"Oh, shit," Sam swears. "He probably called the cops."

He wiggles frantically into his jeans and grabs Dean's Colt out of his loose grip. He takes out the magazine, ejects the round, and drops the hammer before stuffing the gun and the rounds into his own pocket.

"Dean, you wanna get a move on?" he snaps. "Because you just committed a hate crime, and I don't want to stick around and find out how Little Rock P.D. deals with that."

They make it out of the motel and to the Impala, and Dean peels out of the parking lot at record speed.

"It wasn't really a hate crime," Dean tells his brother, once they've driven for about ten minutes and haven't seen any blue and red lights flashing in the rearview. "I just threatened the guy. That's a hate misdemeanor at best."

Sam purses his lips.

"This isn't funny," he says tightly.

Well, fair enough.

"You're right," Dean replies. "It's not. And you'd better start explaining what the hell is going on real fast, because I have _no_ idea what I just walked in on."

_Well, _he thinks, _I have _some_ idea, but that doesn't mean it makes any goddamn sense._

Sam doesn't answer. Dean glances over at him and sees that he's biting his lip, brow furrowed and eyes trained on the floorboard.

"Sam?" he prompts in a warning tone.

"After you left, I decided to go to a bar," Sam explains after a handful of seconds.

"A gay bar," Dean says slowly.

Sam huffs, which Dean takes as a "yes."

"_Why?_"

"I think that should be pretty obvious," Sam bites out.

Dean takes a moment to process that.

"What, you couldn't wait until _after_ we've finished this hunt to go on your little adventure in sexual experimentation?" he asks incredulously.

Another long pause.

"And seriously, Sam?" Dean rants. "Letting some random creep pick you up in a bar? I thought you knew better than that! That guy could've been anybody. He could be some sketchy serial killing drifter!"

Sam scoffs.

"You mean like _us?_"

"I mean you don't _know_ him!" Dean shoots back with scowl.

Sam rolls his eyes.

"Are you kidding me? You don't know _any_ of the girls you sleep with!" he exclaims. "They don't know _you! _They think you're a crime scene investigator or an Air Force pilot or the fucking Crocodile Hunter!"

Dean grimaces.

"Yes, I remember that," Sam continues, "and you have no business going after a girl that wasted!"

"Come on, she wasn't wasted," Dean protests. "She was just stupid."

"At that point, it isn't stupidity, Dean! It's taking advantage of the mentally handicapped!"

"You know what, we're not talking about me," Dean bites out. "We're talking about you _lying _and then running off in the middle of the night because you suddenly felt like having a big gay adventure and giving me a goddamn heart attack! I mean, Jesus, do you know what I thought when I saw him—!"

He smacks a hand against the steering wheel, has to do something with the frustration coiling in his gut.

"I was gonna shoot him," he growls out. "Gonna blow his brains out all over that ugly-ass motel wallpaper. You realize that, right?"

Sam's eyes slide away from Dean to the trees whizzing past his window.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he says in a quiet voice. "You weren't supposed to find out."

There's something off in the tone of his voice, and Dean turns to stare at him in disbelief.

"Are you telling me this isn't the first time?" he asks incredulously.

"No," Sam insists, wide eyed. "That's not—"

He makes a frustrated sound.

Dean narrows his eyes.

"I'm just—" he starts. "I'm trying to understand here. 'Cause I'm pretty damn sure you're not gay."

Sam doesn't answer. In the lights of the passing streetlamps, his face looks pale and drawn.

"I mean, right?" Dean says, slow realization creeping into his voice. "I would know. You'd tell me. _Right_, Sam?"

Sam laughs bitterly.

"Yeah, I'd definitely tell you," he says, a touch of hysteria driving his voice higher, his words faster. "It's not like you don't already make fun of me all the time for being a girl or call me Samantha or, you know, actually accuse me of being gay! Why _wouldn't_ I mention something like that?"

"They're _jokes_, Sammy!" Dean exclaims. "You— _Really?!_"

"It's not a big deal," Sam says quickly, eyes frantic.

And that is just the biggest load of bullshit because they both know that it is, in fact, a _pretty big fucking deal_.

Dean is suddenly so fucking _angry_. It burns him up that after everything they've been through together, all the shit they've seen and done, Sam is still keeping secrets from him. Sam _still_ doesn't trust him after everything Dean's done for him? And then he actually has the nerve to sit there and say that it's _Dean's_ fault?!

"GodDAMMIT, Sam!"

He slams his palm against the steering wheel again, and Sam jumps. His eyes darting, mouth opening and shutting compulsively even though nothing's coming out.

Dean's phone goes off, and he swears, digging it out to see Dad's number on the caller ID. Great. That's exactly what Dean needed, to get grilled on his location when even _he_ doesn't know where they are.

"Fuck," he grumbles. "What am I gonna tell Dad?"

"Don't—" Sam says, his voice sounding oddly high and breathy. "Dean, please don't tell Dad."

Dean blinks, looks from the ringing phone to his brother who has somehow, impossibly, gone even paler.

"Please," Sam says again. "I'm sorry. Please, don't—"

He breaks off with a choked sound. His mouth gapes open again, wordlessly, as his breaths race in and out, quick, hunted pants ringing high in the echo of the car, and now Dean realizes exactly what's happening.

He swears again, pulling over onto the shoulder with a jerk.

"Sammy, breathe," he orders.

His brother's chest jumps and shakes, gasps of air coming too fast, his eyes unfocussed.

Dean fumbles with his seatbelt, throws open his door, and rushes around the Impala to open up Sam's door, every ounce of annoyance melting away in the face of his little brother's distress.

"Sammy," he says, crouching in the dirt and dragging his brother until he's sitting sideways, legs splayed on either side of Dean's body. "Sammy, come on, it's okay. I'm not gonna tell Dad anything you don't want me to, okay? Everything's fine."

Sam buries his head in his hands and manages a wheezing, wretched little laugh.

"Yeah, everything's fine," he mocks in a rushing, ragged gasp, fraying, falling further and further apart before Dean's eyes as he chokes into his palms. "Everything's fine except you _know_ and you're _pissed_ and you're gonna _leave_ and—"

"Hey, hey," Dean cuts him off, getting palms on both of his brother's knees and stroking rhythmically, wishing he could just reach in and physically _drag_ Sam from wherever deep inside himself the panic's driven him. "Who said I was pissed? Who said I was leaving, huh?"

He tries to pull Sam's hands away from his face, to get behind the shield of clenched fingers and sharp elbows and strangled, choking sobs Sam's dragged up around himself, but Sammy just shakes him off, curls up tighter, harder, deeper in.

"I was frustrated that you didn't tell me," Dean presses, skating anxious, useless fingers over arms, elbows, the twisting, tangled strands of hair spilling over Sam's forehead, his fingers still clenched tight over his face, trying to remind Sammy the only way he's got that he's still here, that's it's okay. "That's all. I'm not mad. I'm not leaving. I'm not telling Dad. It's okay. Everything's okay."

He feels like he's a kid again, guilty and remorseful because he'd let the close quarters and isolation wear on his nerves, gotten snippy and hurt his baby brother's feelings, trying to calm him down with fingers in his hair and _I didn't mean it, Sammy, shh, don't cry_.

Sam sniffles, hand still hidden behind trembling hands.

"I messed up," he whispers miserably, still shaking, still curled in on himself protectively. "I ruined everything."

"No, you didn't," Dean reasons, scooting further into Sammy and absently smoothing down a wild, tangled curl sticking out over his baby brother's ear. "Come on. We were okay when you told me about your visions, and we were okay when you started going Sith Lord on the furniture. Liking to take it up the ass every once and a while? That's kid stuff."

He pauses.

"Wait, that came out wrong."

Normally that would get a chuckle – or at the very least a groan – out of Sam, but his brother just gives a quiet sob.

"Sam, seriously," Dean again, tugs at Sam's forearm, tries to get him to look at him, to stop crying, _something_. "It's all right. You know me, man. I may mess around, but I'm not like that. I'm not gonna treat you any different just 'cause you like guys. This doesn't change anything."

"You don't know—" Sam says wetly, hopeless and miserable as he shrugs free of Dean's grip without looking up. "You wouldn't say that if you knew that I—"

"Knew what?" Dean asks, frowning, hands coming to land on Sam's knees.

Sam sobs again, and it like they're back to square one.

"Dude, what?" Dean presses, refusing to give up. "You can tell me."

Sam shakes him head, still won't look at him, and God, Dean is crap at this emotional touchy-feely stuff to begin with and firmly out of "Sensitive and Understanding" options, none of which have fucking worked, so clearly it's time for Plan goddamn B.

He hooks his fingers behind Sam's knees and hauls him forward until he tumbles out of the car, until they're both kneeling in the dirt, nearly nose to nose.

Sam blinks at him owlishly, wet-cheeked and despondent. He looks like hell and smells like sex and tequila, but he's facing Dean now, out of his shell of clenched fingers and sharp, panicked breaths for the first time since this whole mess started, so Dean's gonna count that as a goddamn win.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Dean starts, getting a gentle grip on Sam's neck, refusing to let him retreat back down into himself, "but I can promise you that whatever it is? It's not going to change my mind. How many times do I have to say it? You're my brother. Nothing is going to change that."

Sam opens his mouth to protest, and Dean shakes him gently.

"_Nothing_," he repeats. "Got it?"

Sam nods slowly, doubtfully. Like he doesn't quite buy what Dean's selling but really, really wants to.

"Got it," he answers softly, letting his head fall forward, leaning into Dean as his fingers come up to tangle in his big brother's sleeve.

"Good," Dean says firmly. "Just so we're clear."

They're close now, close enough that the heat of each other drowns out the sticky, oppressive muck of Arkansas in summer. Close enough that their breaths are mingling, that every so often Dean'll get a hit of the sharp, slow bite of tequila as he breathes Sam in, and underneath that, beneath liquor and lime, is something sharper, harder, something that has Dean's hands twitching for lead or cold steel for reasons he won't dig into, can't, not with Sammy in front of him, shivering and shaking and barely to limping as he leans into Dean like he's the last solid, steady thing in the world.

His phone rings again breaking the silence of their shared breaths as it vibrates in a circle on the floor of the Impala where Dean dropped it. He sighs but doesn't make any move to answer it. Let Dad be the one to leave a message for once. This is more important.

"You're really not gonna tell him?" Sam asks nervously, pulling back to watch the missed call alert pop into view on the phone's tiny screen.

Dean snorts, scrubbing his hands across his jeans.

"Dad? Are you kidding?"

Sam swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand, still sniffling a little but getting calmer by the second.

"Thanks."

"I mean, it's not like I think he'd care," Dean clarifies. "It's just not his business."

And Dean's pretty sure he wouldn't. More than likely, Dad would just be pissed off at Dean for wasting his time with something so irrelevant to the hunt.

Sam pulls a face.

"Sure," he says sourly. "I bet he'd be thrilled."

"I didn't say he'd be jumping to start a chapter of GLAAD," Dean tells him, "but it's not like he'd beat your ass down for it either."

"He's beat me down for less," his brother points out.

Dean swallows.

"Sammy—" he starts.

Sam huffs out a breath, shakes his head, and stands up, brushing grit off of his knees. Dean follows him.

"I'm not really worried about that," Sam admits. "It's just— I don't need another reason to be the freak in the family."

Dammit, _this_ again?

"Would you stop saying that?" Dean snaps. "So you're a little different. So what?"

"I'm more than a little different, Dean," Sam says quietly.

And okay, yeah, it's not like there are a wealth of seven foot tall, bisexual, psychic geniuses with demon's blood pumping through their veins running around but—

"That doesn't make you a freak," Dean says emphatically. "Sammy, if you were just like me and Dad, we'd be SOL, and you know it. Hell, I don't think we would have even made it _this_ long. And no offense, dude, but if you were any more like me, I'd probably hate your guts."

Sam gives him a tiny grin.

"Somehow I doubt that," he says.

"Man, are you kidding?" Dean asks, nudging Sam's shoulder with his own. "I don't need the competition! Anyway, that much awesome in one car? Not sure the universe could handle it."

Sam shakes his head, eyes twinkling with affection and unshed tears.

"You're such a jerk."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean chuckles. "Get in the car, bitch."

As he turns to point his baby back toward the city, Sam curled up beside him, Dean can't help the feeling of contentment that settles over him. It doesn't matter that they haven't really resolved anything or that Dean still has way more questions than he has answers or that Dad is probably wearing a hole in the carpet at the motel, waiting to chew Dean out or drop another awful bombshell.

They're together, and neither of them is going anywhere.

The rest can wait until the morning.


	28. Chapter 28

Of course, that all goes to shit the second they walk into the hotel room.

"What the hell is this?" John demands, holding up Sam's crumpled note in his fist, and Dean knew this was coming, knew from the second he picked taking care of Sammy over answering Dad's call, but this is exactly what they don't need, exactly what Sam doesn't need, and why, _why_ did this have to be the night that Dad opts for the liquor store over the bar? Did the universe really hate them that much?

"Sammy just needed some air," Dean answers, hands up and peacemaking voice at the ready as he steps in front of his little brother because he knows, _knows_ that Sam can't handle this right now.

"I'll deal with you in a goddamn second, Dean," John snaps before turning back to Sam. "What the hell did I say about running off on your own?"

He's got a thousand yard glare leveled over Dean's shoulder, not giving an inch, and Dean can smell the liquor, can tell that John's been hitting it hard and fast. It's early, too early, too early and too late for all of this, and if there were ever a time, just _once_, when Dean wished their dad had just _stayed_ _at the goddamn bar_.

"Dad, I just went for a walk. I'm sorry," Sam sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face, and Dean can feel the exhaustion coming off him in waves, can feel how not up to this Sam is, knows he has to do _something_.

"Sorry doesn't change the fact that you disobeyed a direct order," John snaps.

"Dad, I caught up to him, like, two seconds after that," Dean interrupts, trying to guide their dad back, trying to take this whole thing down a notch, because Sammy's getting that look in his eyes again, that panicky, hunted precursor to hyperventilating in the dust on the side of an Arkansas highway, to shaking and shivering and sobbing, convinced Dean was gonna leave him, convinced everyone was gonna leave him just like that, and that means everything, this whole thing, needs to calm the fuck down quick or they're gonna have a problem.

"We're here now," he reasons, going for calm, going for rational. "Everyone's fine, so it's no big deal."

"How 'bout you pipe down and let me decide that?" John thunders, slapping Dean's hands aside and glaring at him poisonously. "And when the hell did you forget how to pick up a goddamn phone, Dean?"

Sam's ironic laugh from behind Dean is faint but unmistakable.

"You got somethin' to say, Sammy?" John snaps.

"You're getting onto us for not picking up, _really?_" Sam scoffs, ducking around Dean. "You, of all people? Of all the hypocritical—"

John's fist is a blur, cracking across Sam's cheekbone, and before Dean knows what's happening, before he can process anything beyond Sam's wide, shocked eyes and the patch of red on his baby brother's cheek, he's got Dad pinned against the wall, shoving him up, on his toes, arm covered in the old man's jacket nailing him in a vertical choke Dad taught him, was so proud of when Dean got it right the first time he tried, but none of that matters now because Sammy was hyperventilating on the side of the road half an hour ago, sobbing and gasping and convinced he was seconds away from not having a family at all, so sure that one or both of them'd beat the tar out of the kid and leave his ass on the side of the highway and now their Dad goes and does _this_.

"I don't care how pissed off you are," Dean grits out, licks of the hot, red fury from when he'd busted down that motel room sneaking into him, driving him, and before he'd been sure, _so sure_, someone was hurting Sammy and now- now _Dad_- After _everything_ he just goes and proves Sam_ right_, and the fury? That white hot rage? It's not mindless anymore. It's not wild or animalistic or anything but cold, ruthless determination that Sammy never, _ever_ feel this way again.

"I don't care how mouthy he gets," he continues, makes sure John is listening, makes sure this penetrates through the booze and fury, makes sure that if nothing else, this sticks. "I don't care how many lines he crosses. He is your _son_."

Dean has to swallow, hard, against all of the secrets, everything he's not allow to say, not allowed to tell Dad and not allowed to tell Sam, all of John's theories about Sammy and demons, the what-ifs and rebuttals their dad would have for those words if Sammy weren't in the room, weren't watching all of this with a dazed, glazed look of shock on his face.

"He is your son," Dean repeats, as if saying it out loud would somehow convince him, "and you do not hit him. It's not okay anymore."

_It never was,_ is the thought that bubbles up in Dean, silent and screaming and echoing through the room, out loud for all that it's unsaid as he numbly lets his arm fall away from Dad's throat, lets him down off his toes as he steps back, swallows hard.

"Dean—" John rasps.

"Sam. Get your stuff," Dean interrupts, turning without meeting his father's eye. "We're getting another room."

"Dean," John repeats, and there's surprise in his voice now, surprise and a hint of disbelief.

"See you at checkout, Dad," Dean cuts him off, not having the patience for it, not tonight.

Not after everything else.

* * *

><p>Sam grabs his laptop and their duffels without asking any questions, just trips after Dean into the breezeway and down the concrete walk to the motel office, half hearing his brother snap out an order for another room with two queens from the bored night clerk, and then following him down another breezeway, another cracked concrete walk and into another hotel room, this one mercifully air conditioned and blessedly absent of John Winchester.<p>

Sam barely has time to drop down on the sagging motel bed before Dean is crouched in front of him, one hand at his jaw, tilting his head back, the other smoothing warm, calloused fingers over the crest of his cheek, just barely tracing over the throbbing brand John's fist has left in its wake.

"You okay?" Dean murmurs, frowning when Sam is too drained by... _everything_ to do more than lean into his hands, let the heat, the pressure, the pattern of warm, familiar callouses anchor him, swallow him, make everything so much simpler, so much_easier_ than it is.

"Sammy, seriously," Dean insists, waving his hand in front of Sam's face. "How many fingers?"

"Two," Sam sighs, barely having to look.

Dean's concussion check's been the same ever since Sam can remember: Two fingers, one of their names, and the reigning SI cover girl.

"Your name's Dean, mine's Sam, and the Swimsuit Edition had a group shot on the cover this year so I'm not gonna name them all," Sam lists boredly before ducking his head as much as he can with Dean checking over his face like it's his mission in life. "He barely tagged me, Dean. I'm fine."

Sam may be pretty out of it, some combination of alcohol and shock and pain taking him to a fuzzy, distant world where everything seems just a little unreal, but he'd have to be a hell of a lot more out of it than he is to miss the expression that twists across his brother's face at that.

The guilt. The recrimination. The self-loathing that once upon a time, when they were younger, when Sam was a hell of a lot smaller than he is now, this'd be just another Friday night, and Dean'd be busting Sam's chops right about now, askin' why he always had to rile Dad up like that.

Once upon a time, John could have hit Sam for any reason at all, and Dean wouldn't have stopped him.

He sure as hell wouldn't have hit back, wouldn't have laid down the law with John and grabbed Sam and gotten them a room somewhere else. Gotten them _out_.

Sam wonders, for one wild, weird second, if he's dreaming. If Matt slipped him something in one of those tequilas and he's lying on a grimy motel bed somewhere, drugged out of his mind and dreaming, dreaming of a world where all this is real, all this is _possible_.

"I'm gonna go get some ice," Dean gravels, turning to dig around in his duffle. "Any luck, you won't look like you went ten rounds with the champ in the morning. In the meantime, pop a couple of these."

He fishes an unmarked bottle of pills from his duffle and tosses it to Sam with a plastic-y rattle.

"Dean, I've been drinking," Sam protests, the beer and tequila and sting in his cheek helping him fumble the catch.

Nope. Definitely not dreaming. It'd have to be real life for Sam to drop a lazy underhand like a six year old in his first game of tee ball.

"Then pop a couple of these and enjoy the ride," his brother grins, but it's thin, pasted on. More for Sam's benefit than anything else as he ducks out of the room on his way to the ice machine.

And honestly, if this is real, Sam still isn't close to wrapping his head around half of it.

Dean finding out.

Dean not caring, or at least acting like he didn't care.

Dad catching them, losing his shit and deciding, surprise, surprise, that it was all Sam's fault.

And Dean- god, Dean laying down the law.

That _happened_.

Dean stepping up and stepping in and _stopping_ Dad.

For the first time- Well, for the first time _ever_.

Getting them out and not looking back and sitting here now, crouched in front of Sam with a t-shirt wrapped bag of ice squashed against his cheek like nothing's changed at all.

Like he doesn't regret anything.

Like he honestly doesn't care.

"What?" Dean demands, cagily, catching Sam's look and frowning.

"Dean," Sam starts, still trying to wrap his head around it. "Back there, with Dad…"

"Man was outta line," Dean shrugs, keeping his eyes on the ice and Sam's cheek like any second the secrets of the universe are gonna drip through the battered Zeppelin tee.

And he says it like it's obvious, like it's the simplest thing in the world, but it_isn't_.

This isn't what happens when Sam shoots his mouth off and Dad reacts like he always reacts and this isn't _normal_ or _usual_ and Dean is just _sitting_ there.

"But Dean—" he tries to protest, but Dean's there, cutting him right off.

"I put you through enough crap tonight," he mutters. "Dad doesn't get to add to it. Not after… not after everything."

That's right. Dean knows now.

He knows, and he's not running or leaving or calling Sam a freak or telling him to never ever call him again.

He's here.

Here and fussing over him and taking his side over Dad's in a major way, not like things always were, but how they've been. How they've been going, and if things are _going_ the same and Dean is _acting_ the same, and he's still _here_, then can he really- does that mean-

"You really don't mind?" Sam asks quietly, tentatively, almost afraid of the answer, but having to know for sure nonetheless, needing it spelled out for him, out loud, almost as much as he needs oxygen, needs blood in his veins, needs the ground beneath his feet and Dean at his side to be some semblance of happy in this lonely, fucked up life he's been dealt.

"Sammy," Dean sighs, shifting his makeshift ice pack on Sam's cheek to check for swelling, but not leaving. Not running. Not yet. "We've been over this. Girls, guys, I don't give a shit. Just don't fucking sneak off on me again, deal?"

"Deal," Sam promises with a hesitant nod.

His eyes drop to the ragged motel carpeting beneath the worn denim of Dean's knees.

"I was so sure you'd hate me," Sam whispers, more to himself, to the dirty motel carpet, to the disbelief about… _everything_ still lingering over him in a thick, cloudy haze. "That you'd tell me to leave and never come back."

"Shows what you know," Dean snorts.

The quip falls flat and the moment drags, grows heavy with things left unsaid, thick and hanging in the air between them. Dean sets his ice pack aside to duck his head, catching Sam's eye where he's staring at the carpet, trying to get lost in the kaleidoscope flecks of beige and dingy, muddled brown.

"I told ya, Sammy. You're my brother. Nothing changes that," Dean presses, soft and deadly serious, tangling his fingers in the stubborn curls at the base of Sam's neck, and it feels good, so good, strong, calloused fingers working through the tangles, calm and comforting and Sam never thought he'd feel this again, not ever, not if Dean found out. "Not goin' to college or spoonbendin' or likin' dudes. _Nothing_. Got it?"

"Yeah, I got it," Sam whispers, pressing the ice pack back to his cheek and trying not to feel like those words, Dean's eyes on his, his fingers in Sam's hair, are the only things tethering him to the ground, to sanity, to the universe as he knows it.

"Good," Dean nods, carding through Sam's hair with one hand as he brings the other up to tug the ice pack away from Sam's bruised cheek, skimming his fingers across the chilled, tingling skin.

Sam doesn't have to be as close as he is to see the regret in Dean's eyes.

"Dean…" Sam starts, tired and aching and all too aware they haven't covered half of the things that happened tonight.

There's still what went down with Dad, lines drawn and sides chosen, and Sam still doesn't know what half of this _means,_ where it puts them in the scheme of things, what happens tomorrow or the day after as they hunt this thing, track down the demon with Dad.

"Listen," Dean cuts him off, kneeing up and crossing the room to where Sam's tossed their duffels on the bed furthest from the door. "As much as I'm lookin' forward to a game of twenty questions about you playin' for the other team, I'm fucking tired, so can we get in the goddamn bed and get some goddamn sleep?"

Okay, so Dean's not gonna talk about that tonight.

Big surprise.

But that doesn't mean there aren't still things Sam needs to know, things he can't ask, doesn't know how to translate from deep, shadowy fears to words, questions, sentences that don't leave him feeling like the floor is crumbling and the ceiling is caving in.

But Dean catches it, sees Sam's eyes dart between the two beds, one spilling over with duffels and his laptop, the other he would have tumbled into without a second thought yesterday, snagged the good pillow and scooted over to give Dean enough room to slide in before tangling himself around his brother, burying his face in his chest as Dean's half-hearted grumbles and quick, clever fingers in his hair lulled him to sleep.

But that was yesterday. And a lot's changed since then...

Dean could want him to take the other bed.

Dean could want him to take another _room_.

Dean could—

"Stop worrying about your ass virtue and get in bed, Sammy," Dean grumbles, derailing Sam's train of thought as he shucks his shirt and jeans and jerks back the horrible green and yellow plaid comforter. "And turn off the light while you're at it."

"Dean—" Sam begins, but his brother's having none of it, rolling his eyes and cutting Sam off as he tests both lumpy motel pillows for their comparative levels of comfiness.

"You're a tasty treat, Sam, but I'll try to restrain myself, if only 'cause you've had a worse day than I have. Visions. Gay revelations. Dad, just… in general." Dean yawns into the pillow he has apparently decided is the best the Budgetel has to offer. "I'm a considerate-ass human being, so I'mma take the high road and keep my hands off your luscious bod. 'Kay? Kay. Awesome. Night."

"You're an idiot," Sam shakes his head, not sure if the amusement he's trying to keep off his face is hysterical or genuine.

"Mmm," Dean groans, wiggling into the mattress. "You love me."

Sam relents, turning the light out and climbing into bed, trying to decide if this is better or much, much worse.


	29. Chapter 29

Checkout time dawns with tension and hangovers and John peeling out without a word in Dean or Sam's direction.

Sam wishes he could say he was surprised or that their fifty-two year old father giving them the silent treatment like a pissed off middle school girl before driving away in a huff wasn't the best possible way this morning could have played out.

"So, before or after breakfast?" Dean asks as they watch their Dad's truck make for the highway.

"What?" Sam looks up from where he's downing aspirin and water like it's nectar of the fucking gods.

"Gay twenty questions," Dean elaborates, tossing their duffels in the trunk and slamming it shut. "I've got 'em, you're answerin' 'em, and cause I'm an awesome brother, I'm gonna let you pick when you want 'em: before or after breakfast. Either way, it's fucking share time."

"Dean-"

"Sam, what happened last night?" Dean interrupts, not giving an inch. "You sneaking off? Your little roadside freak out? That's not happenin' ever again. So we're getting this out in the open, and we're getting it out fucking soon, and if a girly share and care is what it takes then so fucking be it, but I'm not getting my ass scared off like that again, and you're not secret keeping your way to another panic attack on the side of a highway if I can help it. So, I repeat: before or after breakfast?"

"If I say 'after'," Sam asks, swallowing a groan as he rubs at the headache pounding behind his eyes, "is there any chance 'after' can mean 'never'?"

"Nope," Dean dismisses, firing up the Impala.

The worst part is, he has a point.

They don't get this out, Sam knows he'll just build it up in his head again, that the things that seems insignificant in the face of Dean dragging him out of the closet (At gunpoint, nonetheless. Goddammit, Dean.) will just get bigger and badder, harder and harder to say the further they get away from this.

"After," Sam sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. "If we're doing this, I'm at least getting coffee first."

"Amen to that," Dean smirks, pulling into the Waffle House down the road.

"Really?" Sam bitches, grimacing. "Dean, I can smell the grease from here."

"Aww," Dean coos sarcastically. "Little Sammy a little hungover?"

"Shut up," Sam grumbles, getting out of the car and trying not to love how easy, how familiar the teasing feels. How comforting greasy breakfasts and Dean ragging on him about perfectly normal big brother things is in the face of everything.

"How much did you have last night, anyway?" Dean grins as they grab a booth in the corner. "Two beers? Three?"

"Enough to not want to be anywhere near here," Sam bites out, trying to keep his stomach under control as he's assaulted by the smell of bacon grease and unwashed trucker.

"Little Sammy," Dean laughs as a string bean of a waiter with a rat tail and a crooked nametag identifying him as 'Chet' pinned to his grease-stained polyester uniform shirt steps up to the booth. "Always the lightweight."

"What'll it be?" Chet the Waiter drones, pad at the ready.

"The All Star," Dean grins, eyeing the menu like Christmas has come early. "With bacon, scrambled eggs, and hashbrowns."

"How you want them hashbrowns?" Chet drawls, scrawling laconically.

"Smothered and covered," Dean answers, grin widening.

"Dean," Sam whines, not even caring that it makes him sound like a five year old, because having to go over the minute details of his sexual preferences with his brother is bad enough, but asking him to do it with a hangover and Dean reeking of rendered fat and onions?

That's just _inhumane_.

"You wanna double up, Sammy?" Dean teases, shoving a boot into Sam's ankle under the table as Chet watches them with bored indifference. "Best cure for a hangover."

"You're awful," Sam groans, his stomach roiling as he buries his face in his hands and winces when he accidentally hits the bruise on his cheek from the night before.

"Wheat toast and oatmeal for him," Dean tells the waiter, eyes on Sam and brow furrowing, "And two coffees, black."

As soon as they're along at the booth again, he leans forward, reaching for Sam.

"Your face still hurting?" he asks.

"S'fine," Sam mutters, not meeting Dean's eye as he ducks his grip.

Neither of them seems to know what to say after that, the silence stretching out, dragging through the morning bustle and clatter of the diner, getting bigger, more full of all the things they're concentrating on not talking about.

"I'm sorry," Sam says when he can't bite it back any more.

"For what?" Dean asks.

"Dad," Sam tells him. "Last night. You- I just- He was- And then you-"

He breaks off, words not coming together, not working, and he'd like to blame it on the hangover, on the morning, on the lack of coffee, on the possible concussion, but he knows it's just him, just another thing he can't tell his brother without royally screwing it up.

"Don't worry about it," Dean dismisses, giving Chet a tight nod as he slaps their coffees down on the Formica table and bustles off to deal with a family three booths down whose kid is industriously slathering the window with cheese grits. "Like I said before, man was outta line."

He wasn't, though.

Not for them at least.

"Dean," Sam starts, voice full of everything he can't say, of gratitude and guilt and his big brother throwing aside a lifetime of dogged, unwavering loyalty to their Dad to stand up for him over this and for what? _Sam?_ When did he become worth that?

"Besides," Dean interrupts with a careless snort, a grin that's about as weak as the watered down coffee in front of them. "Don't tell me you missed the old man's snoring? Him hoggin' the bathroom all morning, leaving it smellin' like something died in there?"

"No," Sam can't help the ghost of a smile that sneaks across his face as he leans back to let their waiter slap a plate of toast and bowl of what purports to be oatmeal in front of him. "Not really."

He pokes a spoon into the bowl of grey sludge, stirs it experimentally as he keeps his eyes on the table and asks carefully, hesitantly, "Did you?"

"Nah," Dean dismisses.

He digs into his onion and cheese smothered heart attack with relish.

"I'm tellin' you, Sammy," he continues through a mouthful of grease and goop, and really, Sam should have known that if actually _living_ with Dean didn't quench his questionably motivated ardor, Matt from Sidetracks had a snowball's chance in hell of doing the trick. "Man might be a hell of a hunter, but he's a piss poor roommate."

Sam tries not to read anything more into that than Dean might have meant, tries not to hear it as a condemnation of their father as a horrible parent and an overall shit human being.

He tries, at least.

* * *

><p>"You ready Sammy?" Dean cocks an eyebrow at him as they pile back into the Impala and pull on to the Interstate.<p>

"For what?" Sam asks, before remembering Dean's ultimatum with a wince.

"Really?" he whines, because he might be full of aspirin and coffee and what the Waffle House is calling 'Oatmeal' but Sam's pretty sure is wallpaper paste and pencil shavings with a few raisins sprinkled on top for camoflauge's sake, but he will never be ready for Dean, his big brother Dean, grilling him on the nitty-gritty of how he has more in common with Oscar Wilde than just an appreciation for acerbic prose.

"Really, Sammy," Dean nods. "Batter up. Okay, number one-"

"You have a _numbered list?_" Sam interrupts incredulously.

"Dude, I have a _compendium_," Dean snorts, confirming once again that he does actually retain something from the classics they run through the Impala's tape deck on their endless road trip. "And the first one is, why didn't you fucking tell me?"

"Because it was none of your business," Sam shoots back.

It wasn't. It really wasn't, and Sam wasn't _wrong_ here. He had every reason to believe what he did, and if Dean doesn't get that—

"Well, how long are we talkin' here?" Dean presses. "Middle school? High school? How long you been sittin' on this, Sammy?"

Sam's mouth twists again against the sharp, contrary urge to not tell Dean a damn thing, because he hears the hurt in Dean's voice. Because he knows that if they don't get this out, it'll just keep hanging over them, and Sam dodged a bullet last night. He could have lost Dean just like that, and if this is what Dean wants, if this is what he has to do to keep this together, to keep _them_ together…

"College," Sam sighs, caving, giving in, and praying, praying to whoever's listening, that this doesn't send them straight back to hell. "Just since college, Dean."

"_College__,_ and you didn't tell me?" Dean demands, glaring across the seat at him.

"Oh, what was I supposed to do?" Sam tosses back. "Pick up the phone at five thirty in the morning after midterms: 'Hi, Dean? How's it hanging? Kill anything neat lately? That's great. By the way, hooked up with a guy friend of mine last night. Came harder than I ever have in my life. Oh what, Dad's coming? Well, better hang up before he hears you talking to me and tears you a new one. Bye!'"

"You could have written," Dean grumbles sullenly after a long, uncomfortable pause, but no, Sam is not letting him get away with that.

"Yeah, because I want that postcard sitting on Pastor Jim's desk for three weeks," he snorts, rolling his eyes.

Dean nods, giving in, but Sam can tell he's not finished.

"Okay, fine. I get why you didn't tell me then, but still Sammy…" Dean starts after a few miles of silence. "It's been nearly a year. We- I- I don't know."

He trails off, mouth twisting into a line of displeasure.

"Forget about it," he finishes on a grumble, avoiding Sam's gaze.

"Dean, what?"

Sam can see the flush creeping up his big brother's neck, can see the words rise, almost make it out, then get swallowed, tamped down by whatever macho hang-up expressly forbids their utterance as he stares out at the road, at the dash, anywhere but Sam.

"I just," Dean tries again. "I just thought… after everything... if it was something this big, you'd have told me. That's all."

And Sam doesn't know why, but his brother looks like he hates himself for saying that aloud.

"Dean," Sam starts, then stops. Falters, because he never meant- This was never about- Just because he thought he couldn't tell Dean didn't mean that he thought he _couldn't tell Dean_, and that's a piss poor argument, so bad that it falls apart in his own head, but just because he didn't tell Dean _this_ doesn't mean that he wouldn't tell him _anything_. Anything big, anything _important_-

Except that just falls right apart too, doesn't it?

'Cause there's something big, something important that he's sure as hell keeping under wraps, that he sure as hell has no intention of ever telling his brother _ever_, hurt feelings or no.

"I said forget about it," Dean repeats, eyes shuttered, face closed tight, and Sam never wanted this, never wanted Dean to feel like this, like just because Sam wouldn't tell him _this_ thing he wouldn't tell him _anything__,_ because that's not true. He'd tell Dean, he _would_…

Just- just not if it meant losing him.

"No," Sam shakes his head, refuses to let Dean bury this, because secrets or no, with or without the things Dean can never, _ever_ know about his little brother, he's not wrong.

What's between them? Well, whatever it is, it deserves better than this.

"I'm sorry," he starts again, and he is sorry, he _is_. Sorry for not telling Dean. Sorry for not being able to tell him everything, for not being able to tell him more, because Dean deserves more, deserves the truth from Sam, deserves everything from Sam, he _does_, really, and it's not Dean's fault, none of this is, it's _Sam's_, it's always been Sam's, and if Dean can just _see_ that-

"I just…" Sam swallows hard against the memories, the rush of panic, of _fear._"By the time it came up, I'd convinced myself you'd freak if you found out. Take off. Leave me alone."

"Well, so much for your bein' the smart brother," Dean smirks across the front seat, and it's not a hundred percent, not the same shining, devil-may-care flash Sam's seen a hundred thousand times before, but it's something.

It's better.

"Alright, hit me," Sam demands, sitting up, readying himself, because if Dean needs to know this for them to be okay, Sam can tell him. Can follow Dean's lead. Because if Dean can try for normal? Can push through this like a fucking champ then so can he. "Next question, let's go. We've got six and a half hours to Tennessee. and I'm not going over my past hookups with Dad… _anywhere_. At all."

"Fair enough," Dean snorts with half a grin. "Even though I still say he wouldn't flip out about it."

"Dean, he flipped out last night when I went for a _walk_," Sam points out, despite the fact that they both know Sam was not out last night taking the fresh air and admiring the fucking scenery. "He told me to leave and never come back when I wanted to go to _college_. Forgive me for not jumping at the chance to see how our _alcoholic ex-marine serial killing drifter father_ takes the news that his smartass youngest is not only a shame and disappointment who refuses to hunt but also a fucking fairy to boot."

"Sam," Dean starts to object.

Whether it's to half-heartedly to defend their dad or get onto him for talking about himself like that, Sam doesn't know, but either way, he just cocks an eyebrow at his brother.

"So, how'd you suddenly figure out you were gay?" Dean asks, apparently deciding to just let that one drop and jump back in with the most uncomfortable question he can think of off the top of his head.

"I'm not-" Sam shakes his head, but Dean just steamrolls over him, apparently not to be distracted by answers in his quest for, you know, _answers_.

"Because I swear, with all the chicks you mooned after when we were kids, and then-"

He breaks off, his eyes staying very pointedly on the road, the speedometer, the mile markers streaming past, staying as far from Sam or the black notebook peeking out of the bag at his feet as possible.

_Jess._

Her name hangs unspoken between them like a ghost. Silent, intangible, but very much present.

Very much there.

"Not that labels are always one hundred percent accurate," Sam starts, breaking the silence a few miles later, "and not that human sexuality isn't a sliding scale, and not that it's not the _person_ that's important to me, not their gender, but if I had to pick one I'd say I was bi not gay. And how? Well…"

Sam swallows, hoping to god Dean's not gonna press him for the details as he feels a flush just beginning to heat his cheeks. This isn't as awkward, isn't as horrifying as he thought it would be, but it's still going over all this crap with _Dean_. Hearing about his big brother's hookups is worlds away from going over how the hell Sam figured out he liked cock with the big brother who changed his diapers and taught him how to tie his shoes.

"College is a time for growth and experimentation," he finishes.

He's not gonna tell Dean about Connor. About dark curls and a wide, soft smile with just a little bit of a tease at the corner, about study sessions that turned into something- something _more_. Into Sam realizing that maybe his yen for a normal life wasn't the only thing that set him apart from Dean or Dad.

"So, you had a boyfriend." Dean prompts.

"Two," Sam confirms.

"Hookups?" Dean quirks a skeptical eyebrow at Sam from the driver's seat.

"Aside from last night's disaster? No. I'm not _you_, Dean," Sam scoffs.

"Serial Monogamist Sammy," Dean grins. "Some things never change."

He's silent for a moment, eyes trained on the dashboard.

"Did Jessica know?" he asks softly.

"Yeah," Sam nods. "Jess knew."

He doesn't offer any more detail than that, and Dean doesn't ask.

"Okay, so girls versus guys," Dean picks up again, moving right down his apparent mental list. "What percentage are we talkin' here?

"S'mostly girls," Sam shrugs, looking down and trying to will away the blush he can feel pinking his cheeks. "Just… sometimes it's guys."

"What kind of guys?"

"Yeah, I'm not answering that one," Sam laughs.

"Why not?" Dean presses, quirking an eyebrow.

"Because it's awkward and invasive and just- _no_," Sam stammers, shaking his head.

"Fine, have it your way," Dean smirks, and Sam knows, just _knows_, that the next one is gonna be worse. "Top or bottom?"

And he's right.

"Pass," Sam mutters, face hot and eyes everywhere but the driver's seat.

"Aw, you're no fun," Dean cajoles, giving Sam's shoulder a playful shove.

"Not like you can't give it a good fucking guess," Sam grumbles, glaring out the window.

"Okay, okay," Dean grins, tousling Sam's hair. "Sorry I asked, Sammy. I'll give it a rest."

"_Thanks_," Sam bites out, shoving out from under Dean's hand and glaring fixedly at the passing countryside, but twenty miles later he's trying and failing to keep a straight face as his brother screws up the words to "It's the End of the World as We Know It" and feeling lighter than he has in days so, all in all, he figures Dean's little Q&A session could have gone worse.


	30. Chapter 30

They go through the rest of Arkansas and a good part of Tennessee without hearing from Dad.

Dean chalks it up to lingering hangovers and dogged bitterness about last night's clusterfuck, figures they'll be lucky if Dad confabs with them at all, much less in the next couple of hours, but they're running out of road between them and Morgan County, and if he and Sammy are gonna have to spilt their time between huntin' down the demon and huntin' down their Dad, he'd just as soon know it beforehand.

"Ash get us any closer on the omen front?" he asks Sam over lunch, his little brother pounding away on his laptop and pointedly ignoring the prime plate of Tennessee barbecue kissing his elbow.

"Haven't heard from him," Sam shakes his head. "But the Weather Service is reporting some unusual activity over eastern Tennessee."

"And that helps us how?" Dean prompts, poking a fork into Sam's pulled pork and waving the mouthful directly in front of his little brother's face.

"They're reporting storms, " Sam elaborates, eyes not leaving his laptop screen as he dodges Dean's porky payload, "but the wind patterns, rain, pressure systems, they're all wrong."

"How wrong?" Dean asks, stuffing the fork in Sam's mouth with a triumphant grin as soon as Sam starts to answer.

"Not there wrong," Sam answers, swallowing with an annoyed glare at Dean, but he takes another pointed bite of barbecue, so Dean counts it as a win.

"We're talkin' clear skies and lightning strikes," he continues, going back to the laptop and keeping his fork well out of Dean's reach.

"Sounds like an omen to me," Dean shrugs, picking up his own sandwich and getting ready to restrategize now that Sam has laid claim to all the cutlery on the table. "Where's this going down?"

"Hard to say," Sam scans his screen. "A lot of these reports are pretty vague, to the minute stuff, but most of it seems to be happening around the eastern end of the Cumberland Plateau, just outside of Wartburg."

"Wartburg? Seriously?" Dean asks through a mouth of delicious pulled pork. Jesus Christ. Sammy doesn't know what he's missin'.

"Crown jewel of Morgan Country and home to Frozen Head State Park," Sam grins, turning the laptop screen to face Dean.

"Oh, you gotta be kiddin' me," Dean laughs, scanning the park homepage.

"For real," Sam smirks, taking the laptop back. "Save the cattle deaths, they've got every omen that's popped up so far, including these newest weather fluctuations. Now, you write the cattle deaths off as unnoticed or unreported or just a plain old lack of cows, I'd say this is our best bet for a place to start."

"You figure go in as Wildlife Services, check out the omens, personnel files?" Dean asks.

"It's a start," Sam nods.

He finally shuts his laptop, starting in on the cold barbecue in front of him.

"You want me to tell Dad?" he asks, not looking up from his plate.

"Nah, I got it," Dean shrugs, trying and failing for 'Totally Not Uncomfortable Being the One to Call Dad' as he digs his phone out of his pocket.

Not like he wants Sammy to do it, but _still._

He stares at the screen for a second, Sam's eyes on him expectantly.

"I'm just gonna-" He jerks his head at the door, getting up from the table.

"No, no. Yeah. Totally. Take your time," Sam nods, gluing his eyes to his plate and shoveling pork into his mouth like the secrets of the universe are hidden at the bottom of the plate.

Once he gets outside, Dean takes a deep breath and punches Dad's number on the speed dial.

One ring… Two...

"This you or your pain in the ass brother?" John snaps on the other end of the line.

Oh yeah. He's in a _great_ mood.

"Uh, it's me," Dean starts, proving that he really is the silver tongued one in the family. "We picked up some more freak weather in Tennessee. Outside of Wartburg."

"Be there by sundown," Dad snaps, ending the call without another word.

_Well_, Dean thinks, _that went __awesome_.

When he gets back in the restaurant, Sammy's missing the 'casual' mark by a mile as he tries to look like he wasn't staring out the window, bird dogging Dean's convo with Dad from the booth, but his plate's clean and he's got a smear of barbecue sauce on his chin, so Dean let's it slide in favor of giving his thumb a lick and swiping at the stuff mom-style until Sam bats him away in an irritated huff.

"Come on, Grumpy," he smacks Sam on the shoulder with a laugh as he snags the bill and makes for the counter. "We gotta meet Dad in Warthog."

"Wartburg," Sam corrects automatically as he follows Dean to the register. "He actually picked up?"

"Second ring," Dean confirms, giving their waitress a grin/wink combo as he stuffs some ones in her tip jar.

What can he say? As advertised, this place had the best butts in town.

"Well, did he say anything?" Sam presses as they're getting into the car. "Did he ask about the omens?"

"Didn't ask much of anything," Dean shrugs, firing up his baby and pulling out of the parking lot. "Just said to meet him in what's-it's-face by dark."

"Wartburg," Sam corrects again. "Did he sound mad? Hungover? What are we dealing with here?"

"I don't know, Sam," Dean snaps, stuffing Master of Puppets into the tape deck and mashing play. "He sounded like his normal sunny-ass self. That answer your questions?"

Sam clams up after that with raised eyebrows and wounded muttering into his legal pad full of notes, but when they pull up beside Dad's truck at a fill up on the outskirts of Wartburg, Sammy's at his elbow as soon as they unfold themselves from the car, silent support at his back as they step up to square off against their Dad for the first time since last night's throw down.

* * *

><p>They get out of the car in unison, stepping out and slamming the doors so perfectly in sync that the sound rings out across the parking lot as one shot. One perfect, percussive beat.<p>

No dissonance, no division.

No separation, not even a bit.

John's not sure how he missed that before. If it was even there to miss before Sam left for Stanford, something that's always been there, lurking just outside of John's notice, or if it's something new, something that's sprung up in the months they've spent hunting together.

Maybe if he'd noticed it earlier, maybe if he'd picked up on just how much-

But it's too late for that now.

And what happened last night? It's no guarantee. No promise that Dean won't have his back, won't be any good when the time comes, but now?

Well, he's made it perfectly clear whose side he's on for the time being. Who he'll be defending against hurts old and new between now and-

Well, between now and whenever Yellow Eyes makes his play.

It's coming soon. John can feel it, feels the yellow-eyed bastard getting closer with every step, and whether that means he's on the right track or his youngest is leading them, knowingly or unknowingly, into one of that demonic son of a bitch's traps is anyone's guess, but John is ready for him.

As ready as he's ever been. As ready as he'll ever be.

'Course, he doesn't have the Colt.

No, Dan Elkins made damn sure of that, crotchety bastard slamming the door right in his face as soon as he saw who it was had come callin', swallowing up Sammy's lead and his old fairy tales and threatening to have John booked for trespassing and pump him full of buckshot to boot if he didn't make tracks, _pronto_.

But Colt or no, way to kill this bastard or no, if this is where Yellow Eyes has decided to make his play, if this is where the bastard finally wants to square off, John'll meet him.

And if now is when Sam- when he- when things finally...

Well, John is ready for that, too.

As ready as he'll ever be.

And Dean?

Well. Any luck, Dean'll understand someday.

John knows now he'll never forgive him. Saw that much in his eldest's eyes last night when he drew a line straight between John and Sam, between the father who raised him and the brother he practically raised, and stepped across it, stepped away from John and towards his little brother, and maybe that's it.

Maybe that's how it'll be in the end, Dean's eyes steely and cold, his face hard with anger and betrayal when John does what needs to be done. But maybe, just _maybe_, when this is all over, when the dust has settled and time has passed and the years have worn away what could have been with what _was_, with what everyone _was_ in the end, he might understand.

"Took you boys long enough," John snaps as they stride across the parking lot in unison (always in unison. God, how did he not _notice_? How did he not _know_?), completely ignoring the fact he pulled up to the Wartburg Quick Stop Combination Gas Station Mini Mart Car Wash and Taqueria not ten minutes ago.

"Here now," Dean answers, pausing just a second, just short enough that it's not insolent, but just long enough that John notes the gap, before he tacks on, "Sir."

John doesn't miss the tightness in his eyes, Sam's vibrating tension over his shoulder, and he wishes he knew when the hell he became the bad guy in all of this.

"Checked up on those omens you got wind of," he bites out, picking up on the sour, indignant twitch at the corner of Sam's mouth at the implication that any of his intel needs double checking.

He doesn't mention how half his contacts at the Weather Service hadn't gotten wind of the weather patterns yet, or how the ones that had actually been able to confirm Sam's leads had to go dig through incoming reports for a good half hour then call John back with the OK. He definitely doesn't mention how it took his guy at Wildlife Services the better part of a day and a half to check the boys' tip about the algae or having to go through six cattle associations and more than a dozen stockyards before he found a breeder in the Tennessee area that was having trouble with stock dropping dead outta nowhere.

He doesn't say a word about how, if he were workin' this solo, he'd still be in an Illinois cabin, safe and secure and no closer to Yellow Eyes, to justice and vengeance and revenge, sweet revenge, than he's been in twenty-two years.

For Mary.

For Dean.

For the life they could have had.

Above all, before anything else, John doesn't say a goddamn thing about how working with the boys on this, about how letting Sam anywhere near this case, giving him the research and following his tips and letting him put his too-quick two cents in at every turn, is either gonna be what wins it for them, what finally gets them this bastard's head on a plate, or what cinches it for Yellow Eyes, what sends them all strolling right to hell and into his hands.

"They check out?" Sam demands tightly from his place at Dean's elbow, and John can see in his eyes that he knows they did, that he's just waiting for John to admit it. To admit that Sam was right, to admit that he thinks this is a trap, to admit that he's goin' along with it anyway, to admit to playing right along with the game, whatever it is.

"They did," John grinds out through his teeth, and if he just had the Colt, if he just _knew_, for _sure_-

"Got wind of another one," Dean cuts in. "Freak lightning in the state park on the edge of town."

"There other omens near there?" John demands, mind already churning, dissecting the info, the intel, the possibilities.

If it's true, it's a sign. Damn near a confirmation that even if this is a setup, even if is a trap for him and the boys, the bait is real, genuine. The lightning was always there, after the weather but before the crop failures, and trap or no, gun or no, Yellow Eyes is _here_, _now_, and John's closer, has gotten here earlier than he's ever managed to before. That bastard might know he's coming, but John knows his game, has been studying this scumbag's playbook for twenty goddamn years.

If this is it? If this is really it? He's ready.

"All of 'em," Sam confirms, just close enough to smug to get John's dander up, to have Dean edging that much closer to his brother, putting himself that much squarer between John and Sam, should one or the other make a move.

Like he didn't see clear enough last night exactly whose team his eldest is pitching for.

God, the look in Dean's eye. The ice cold fury that took over his son the _instant_ John laid a hand on Sam, that had him pinning John against the wall with an ironclad determination, an _anger_, that he'd only ever seen aimed at things that lurked in shadow. Things that went bump in the night. Things that they hunted.

Things that they_hated_.

John had been sure, _so sure_, that no matter what happened in Louisiana, no matter how much tainted blood Sam had dumped into his eldest, Dean was _his_, was one hundred percent the son he raised, but now…

Now he's starting to think that there are a lot of ways to get your hooks into someone, and black-tinged blood's just one of 'em.


	31. Chapter 31

"This state park's where we start then," John nods after a hard swallow.

"You thinkin' we go in as Wildlife Services-" Dean starts, but John cuts him off with a hard look and a quick shake of the head.

Dean's not so far off the reservation that that doesn't shut him up like it always has, and John gets a quick, sharp hit of satisfaction in seeing his training show through, in seeing just a hint of the soldier he raised show through this new disobedience, this new loyalty to Sam above all others.

"_I_ go in as wildlife services," he corrects sharply. "After that little stunt you two pulled last night your asses are riding the pine until I say so."

Dean opens his mouth to protest, but Sam beats him to the punch.

"Fine," he nods. "You take us in there as your trainees, we'll take the bench wherever we bed down and still have clearance, you wanna tag us in later."

It's reasonable. It's sensible. It's exactly what John wanted to do.

And the fact that it came out of Sam's mouth sends up every red flag John has.

"Don't hold your breath," he snaps, glaring at them both. "You get your ID's ready, and you follow my lead. I hear any backtalk or you go on any of your fuckin' field trips, I'll pack both your asses off to Bobby Singer's in a heartbeat, you hear?"

The old threat slips out before he can stop it, rings hollow and empty even as the boys nod, tell him the names on their Wildlife Services badges, and get back in the Impala. John thanks whoever the hell is listening that Sam didn't pick apart his hollow punishments, that Dean didn't point out that if Sam didn't want to go, that if either of them didn't want to leave this case, there wouldn't be a damn thing John could do to make them, short of havin' 'em arrested.

Not that it wouldn't be interesting to see, Sam on the other side of iron bars, Dean and Yellow Eyes with their favorite boy in the pinch, and did he _really_ just think that?

Jesus Christ, demon fight or no, John really is goin' to hell.

* * *

><p>Six miles up the road, they've seen all the wonders Wartburg has to offer and Sam and Dean are doin' their best to look like whatever the hell Wildlife Services trainees look like at John's elbow as he strides in to the Frozen Head State Park Visitor Center.<p>

John's never met pair of trainees on the level - that is, one's that weren't his own sons or similarly underaged hunters playin' at the same con – but he's pretty sure they don't wear busted up leather jackets and biker boots and that even trainee rangers are required to get a damn haircut once in a goddamn while, not to mention the fact that Dean's still sportin' Daeva claw tracks across the better part of his forehead and Sam's got a bruise purpling his cheekbone that even the most gullible state park employee would have a hard time believing came from a rogue bobcat.

Transparent pretext or no, they keep their mouths shut as he bullshits his way into the Park Manager's office, gets told everything he already knew about the freak weather and downright unnatural algae blooms, 700 miles north and two thousand feet above sea level away from its natural goddamn habitat, and of course, that's when Sammy decides to pipe the fuck up with everything he ever learned by watchin' too much Discovery Channel as a kid.

"Are you thinking introduced specimen, or a local mutation?" he asks from his spot next to Dean on the sagging office couch against the wall behind John.

"Well, introduced is more likely," the Park Manager, Maxwell, a brick shithouse of a man with a red face and handlebar mustache for the record books, responds. "We've had problems like this crop up before with pests hitchin' a ride on firewood, introduced funguses givin' our bat population hell, and you know, bugs and mold got that way about 'em, but introducin' _algae__?_Real red tide shit? We don't know what the hell to make of it. We just know it's killin' the hell outta our Pumpkin-Seed Bream population, the delicate fuckers."

He snorts, throwing up his hands.

"S'why I'm glad you boys've decided to stick your goddamn noses in," he announces, half a smirk sending his mustache quirking. "Good to have this shit off my desk and let me get back to other matters."

"Like the animal deaths?" Sam nods, and he's- he's _fishing_. John hasn't missed so much that he'd miss one of his boys leading a witness, and it's something, something they haven't found, but could very well be there.

"Six cows, three goats and one very old alpaca," Maxwell grumbles, shooting a poisonous look at the report on his desk. "And it don't matter that they're clear outta the boundaries of the park, Old Man Staggers just has to call and bitch my ear off about it. You seein' that somewhere else?"

He directs the question to John which, thank god for small favors, 'cause their cover'd be worn pretty fuckin' thin if his trainee knows more about the local wildlife problems than he does.

"Couple cows in the next county," he nods. "So far we don't think they're related, but we're keeping the possibility on the table."

"Super," Maxwell gusts. "I just can't wait to tell Joe Staggers red fuckin' algae from my rivers killed his wife's damn alpaca. Anything else you gentlemen got for me?"

"Maybe," John hedges, standing up and jerking his chin to get the boys movin' for the Impala. "We'll need some time. Park access. The works. Someplace to bed down close to the action, you got it."

"You can pick up that park access with Mavis at the front desk," Maxwell nods. "As for the home base, we got a couple of old CCC cabins goin' empty at the edge of the ridge. Pretty basic digs, but it should make it easy to keep an eye on things, that what you're lookin' for. Anything else?"

John watches as Sam and Dean pile into the Impala, already goin' back and forth a mile a minute, tearin' apart this latest batch of omen activity between the two of 'em.

"You ever get any trainees through here, Maxwell?"

"More'n I care for," the man snorts, glancing up at John with a knowing smirk twitching his mustache. "Want me to put the word out, have my rangers keep an eye on 'em for you?"

"Just make sure they don't go pokin' their nose where it don't belong," John sighs, hating himself for doing this, but not really seeing any other choice.

It'd take an army to keep the boys benched on this one and to say he's workin' with limited fuckin' resources'd be an understatement. Best he can hope for is that the local ranger detail and the knowledge that John's watching 'em like a hawk'll keep the boys on as tight a leash as possible until-

Well, until.

* * *

><p>"So this sucks," Sam announces, looking critically around the cabin as they step through the warped, wooden door and letting the listing screen slam shut behind them.<p>

"Come on, Sammy," Dean reasons, looking around. "It's not that bad."

It is, actually, that bad.

The only thing that stops the tin-roofed, concrete block cabin from being one room is the tiny closet of a bathroom tucked off to one side. There's no door, because why would there be? There's just an opening and a shower curtain tacked up for some semblance of modesty. At some point, someone must have come through tryin' to make the place a little more homey, 'cause there are some creased wilderness prints tacked to the walls, a sad-ass fake plant in one corner, and some really ugly throw pillows on the falling-through fold out couch, but that doesn't exactly hide the fact that the concrete floors are bare and the rest of the furniture, what little there is, is rough-hewn pine and army surplus, battered and sagging from years of wear and tear, and why can't, just this once, a lead put them on a cruise ship or maybe Hawaii?

"God, this place doesn't even have _Wi-Fi_," his little brother complains, shutting his laptop with a frustrated huff. "Guess we're just _fucked_ then."

"You've still got the files on your laptop, though," Dean probes, even though he knows Sam is right. "Dad's research, your little computer copy of his journal, the Key of what's-it's-face?"

"Which'll do jack to help us find this family before the demon does, Dean," Sam says, rolling his eyes. "I need to be going through hospital records, Country Clerk's Office registers, Social Security, none of which are exactly available from Dad's latest in a long line of crazy cabins stuck on the corner of East Bumfuck and No One Can Hear You Scream!"

"Okay, first Sammy," Dean starts, swallowing his grin, and holding up a finger. "I have to tell you, as the caring and sensitive brother, that 'East Bumfuck' is offensive to people who, you know, are into that."

Sam snorts and chucks a throw pillow with a bug-eyed needlework armadillo at Dean's head.

"Secondly," Dean continues, dodging Sam's questionably rendered missile, "if you gotta have Wi-Fi to work, let's go."

"What?" Sam asks. "Where?"

"Out," Dean elaborates. "About. Wherever the hell you can do whatever it is you do to give that toy of yours the go-juice."

"Dean, we're in the middle of nowhere," Sam shoots a skeptical look at the dark skies outside of the cabin window. "The only places that are gonna be open this late are bars."

"Good," Dean nods, shrugging into his jacket and getting his hand on the keys. "We could use the cash, and you could use a drink."

"Who knows?" he grins. "Maybe we can even manage to get you laid."

"I really doubt they're gonna have a bar like that here, Dean," Sam mumbles, ducking his head and fiddling awkwardly with the strap of his laptop bag as a blush rises on his face.

"Won't know if we don't look," Dean shrugs, shoving lightly at Sam's shoulder. "Come on. We're burning moonlight here."

"It's for the case, Sammy," he adds, reading the hesitation on Sam's face plain as day. "Lives at stake? Battle between good and evil in the balance? _Wi-Fi__?"_

"Fine, fine," Sam relents. "What about Dad?"

"Yeah, this is our case as much as his, and there's no fucking food here, so Dad can choke on a dick for all I care," Dean dismisses, before he sees Sam's _look_.

"If he's into that," he backpedals, holding his hands up. "Which is totally okay with me."

"God, you're hopeless," Sam sighs, but Dean sees him trying to hide a smile as he shoves his laptop back into his bag.

"You love it," he grins, digging out his phone. "Now go change your shirt. You're never gonna get a hookup looking like a lost co-ed."

It's muffled, but he's pretty sure he hears Sam mutter, "Shows what you know," in the background as he's waiting for Dad to pick up, but before he's got a chance to follow up on that, he's got John's voice in his ear and an explanation to cook up as to why it's totally not a symptom of Sam's demonic nature that he and Dean are about to toss Dad's "No Fucking Field Trips" rule out the window not three hours after he made it.

"Dean," John snaps on the other end of the line, "there a problem?"

"Sam and I are goin' out for food," he blurts out.

It's the truth as much as anything else is, and "I'm taking my brother out to a gay bar for sex and Wi-Fi" probably isn't gonna sound any better to John's ears, so Dean goes with it.

"I thought I told you to stay put in the fucking cabin," John snaps.

"So we're benched," Dean tries for reasonable, he _does_, but he can't help the edge that sneaks into his tone, just a little. "That mean we're on half-rations, too? How far you gonna take this, Dad?"

John is silent on the other end.

"Listen," Dean checks over his shoulder, sees Sam studiously Not Listening as he coils his laptop cord with Pythagorean precision, "if you're worried about demon trouble, we got our anti-possession charms on. I'll be with him the whole time."

_I'll be watching him the whole time._

It's not something that needs to be said. Hell, since Sam is very definitely _not evil_, it's not even something that needs to be _done_, but it's what John needs to hear. It's what'll get them out of this broke-ass cabin and on the road to beers and burgers and Wi-Fi for Sammy, to research and solving this case and maybe making up, just a little, for the shit show Dean started last night when he tore out after his little brother in a panic without even calling first, so he says it.

"Fine," Dad bites out, and Dean doesn't have to know their Dad half as well as he does to hear the anger in that one syllable, the fine, tight thread of tension, of resentment. "But you come straight back when you're done. And Dean?"

"Yeah, Dad?"

"I call," John snaps, "you better damn well pick up."

"Yes, sir," Dean sighs to the empty air as John hangs up without even waiting for a response.


	32. Chapter 32

Sorry for updating a little late today! We're in the process of moving right now. This chapter's a bit short, as well, but don't worry. We'll make up for that next week!

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><p>For all that Wartburg isn't anyone's definition of a bustling metropolis, it is, with Dean's lead foot and focused determination, within driving distance of The Edge, and how his brother a) knows of its existence and b) divines it's exact location on the outskirts of Knoxville, Sam hopes he never knows.<p>

He's pretty sure Dean's never been to a gay bar in his life, but then again, twenty-four hours ago, he was pretty sure if Dean ever found out Sam liked it hard and fast from charming bastards with thick cocks, he'd either try and fix him or never speak to him again, so clearly there's a margin of error at play here.

This place, though?

Well, it's no Sidetracks, that's for damn sure. Much less Cheers for Queers, much more Club Med with a thing for Madonna.

They've been here fifteen minutes, and Sam's not sure what he's having more trouble processing, the fact that there's an honest-to-god, not-at-all-ironic Cornhole setup on the deck or the fact that it's Poker Night and, if it weren't for the fact that they're already on Round Three, Sam's pretty sure Dean'd be completely fine with wading in and cleaning out the joint.

And it's _weird_ and _wrong__. I_t's Dean, Sam's _brother_, in a gay bar, and instead of freaking out and trying to confirm his heterosexuality with the purifying standbys of salt and fire, he's watching Poker Night's top seed try and fail to bluff his way through a hand of two threes and stuffing his face with cheeseburger which, for all that it came with a garnish of artfully cut tomato and chipotle mayonnaise, must be pretty damn good if the speed at which Dean's packing it away is any indication.

As for Sam's food?

Well, he'd say that there's no way people come here for tossed salad, but he knows that'd be a lie.

Limp greens aside, the place does sport a pretty decent internet connection. Leave it to Dean to find the only gay bar in Tennessee with good burgers and fast internet. And poker. Jesus Christ, what _is_ he? The Dive Whisperer?

They're at the bottom of their second round with Sam scrolling through Frozen Head personnel files, hoping to find a match with the family he saw in his vision when Dean asks out of the blue:

"What about him?"

"Who?" Sam asks, eyes flicking up from the glow of his laptop.

"Him." Dean jerks his chin at a twentysomething twink at the bar, fauxhawk-ed hair competing with his day-glo purple polo and white jeans for attention as he nurses a microbrew.

"Not my type," Sam dismisses flatly, trying to play it cool as a sudden, sharp embarrassment at Dean _being_ here, _doing_ this, floods him, makes him wish that he could just crawl under the table and hide because Jesus Christ, this is _Dean_.

Dean, Sam's brother.

Dean, straightest straight guy ever to like chicks, _here_. At a gay bar. Picking out guys for Sam.

God, this is so much worse than Dean following him and Emily Wells to the movies junior year and holding up numbers to score Sam's make out technique.

"You're welcome to him though," he gets out with a forced imitation of a sarcastic grin as he takes a sip of his lukewarm beer and goes back to his research.

"So what is?" Dean presses, signaling their waiter for another round which _good_.

Any world where Sam is faced with hashing out his type, his _guy_ type, his recently-disconcertingly-close-to-Dean-type type, with Dean himself is a world in which Sam needs more alcohol _ASAP_.

"Not him. Dean, I'm trying to work here," Sam bites out, gesturing pointedly to the laptop and trying to delay the inevitable as long as fucking possible, because he knows what Dean is like when he gets his teeth in something, and he knows that Dean is curious about this, and _god_, Sam would rather not know if it's possible to physically _die_ from embarrassment.

"You havin' any luck?" Dean asks, taking the bait and leaning back as their waiter sets their drinks in front of them, blatantly checking out Dean in the process. And if Sam glares at the guy until he backs off, so what?

They're working, and the last thing he needs tonight is Dean racing off to confirm his heterosexuality in a panic after some handsy drink jockey gets a little too friendly handing over their next round of longnecks.

"Not so far," Sam shakes his head after the waiter clears out. "Park records were a bust, but that still leaves hospital records, county records, the probate's office, the fucking rangers' Facebook pages-"

Sam sighs, scrubbing an hand over his face at the sheer needle-in-a-haystack-ness of it all, and takes a swig of his beer, hating himself for wishing it was something stronger.

"Somewhere we've gotta find something, right?" He rubs at the pounding in his temple and looks up at Dean.

"Yeah, Sammy," Dean nods with a reassuring grin and a nudge to Sam's foot beneath the table as he motions over the waiter. "We'll figure it out, don't worry."

Even though it's him at the laptop, him with the visions, and him with the spoonbending and friction with Dad and the big incestuous fucking secret, Sam is really, really glad Dean said 'we'.

"You got the stuff for a Bronx Bomber?" his brother asks when their waiter makes his way back to their table and hovers way-too-solicitously at Dean's elbow. "Grumpy here could use a pick-me-up."

"Sorry, no absinthe," the waiter apologizes, sounding way too sorry to actually be sincere but just sorry enough to justify inching that much closer to Dean, which has Sam's eye narrowing and his poisonous glare ratcheting up to eleven. "But Jack at the bar makes a badass Haute and Steamy, if your friend's into that."

He nods to Jack At The Bar, who's sporting a skintight tank and cheekbones that could cut glass.

Clearly the waiter is willing to play dirty here.

"No kidding," Dean grins at Sam, picking up on none of this. "Give us one of those, a shot of tequila for me, and one for yourself."

The waiter swans off with a satisfied smirk Sam's way, setting himself up for disappointment and guaranteeing himself a crappy tip in the process.

"I'm working, Dean," Sam bitches. "I need coffee, not chocolate vodka, whipped cream, and Bartender Jack's phone number."

"I think that's exactly what you need," Dean grins, tossing the lime from his beer to thump against the back of Sam's laptop screen. "But hey, Mixologist Sammy. You pick that up at college, too?"

He did, not that he'd ever admit it.

"I grew up in the same bars you did, Dean," Sam snaps. "And for the love of god, remember you're in a gay bar. Don't buy the waiter drinks unless you want him in your lap, okay?"

"He's into me? Seriously?" Dean asks, craning his neck to get another look at the guy.

"Buy him another shot, get me away from the table, and it's a done deal," Sam confirms boredly, cracking the administrative password to the Morgan Country Medical Center Records System without even trying.

If he had a dollar for every time sensitive information (like say, the birth, medical, and billing records for every patient at the only hospital in this crappy county), was secured by such intricate cyphers as "123456" or "password" he and Dean would never have to pull another credit card scam again.

Once he's in, it's a pretty simple matter to pull up all the reported births from roughly six months ago, run those names against those he was able to pull from the Tennessee Park Services Employee files, and come up with three names, three babies born to fathers employed by Parks services in the same area as the omens.

Three. He's got it down to three.

Between him, Dean, and Dad, there are three of them.

They can check three families out in a couple hours. Less than that. If Sam doesn't find anything else out tonight, if The Edge's Wi-Fi connection cuts out right this minute, they could still have the family this thing is targeting pinned down by lunch tomorrow.

If he didn't have any more information than this, he could save these people.

They could all save these people.

His smile, his relief must catch Dean's attention, because he's leaning forward, craning his neck to see what's happening on Sam's laptop screen.

"What do you got?"

And Sam's already diving back in, is pulling up DMV records, checking names and faces in driver's license photos against the list in front of him, against his own shaky, fear soaked memories of the vision he got back in Colorado and no, no, not yet…

Jackpot.

"Bryan Boeffel," he says, turning the screen so Dean can see. "Thirty-eight, Parks Services employee, recent father to baby Melissa. Eight pounds, four ounces, turning six months old Sunday. This is the guy from my vision, Dean. This is the family it's after."

Sam hits a couple of keys on the laptop, pulls up another picture.

"His wife? Sarah? I saw her, too. They're here. They're all here."

"Hot damn, Sammy," Dean laughs, punching Sam in the arm. "Mission a-fucking-ccomplished. Knew you could do it."

He grins, catching the waiter's eye.

"And," he says, "I know just how we're gonna celebrate."

"Dean, no," Sam protests, but Dean is already mouthing the magic words to their waiter, sending him scrambling for salt and limes and that awfully, awfully familiar bottle.

_Tequila_.

Sam doesn't have to be psychic to know that there is no way this ends well.


	33. Chapter 33

Half an hour later, they've moved from the booth to the bar, much to their waiter's disappointment, and Sam's thoroughly, thoroughly fucked.

Except, you know, _not_.

Mainly because the guys Dean keep singling out for his approval are so totally and completely _wrong_.

"No," Sam drones, pounding back another shot and chasing it with a wedge of lime and a wince as the familiar burn has his throat searing and eyes clenching before he drops an elbow back to the bar which, okay, might be a bit more… _tilty_… than it was a few shots ago, but you know, Sam is in a Tennessee gay bar with his not-at-all-gay brother who keeps picking out the twinkiest twinks ever to have twinked for Sam's stamp of approval.

Those last… _however many..._ shots were a completely and totally necessary part of getting through this nightmare.

"Just _no_," he repeats intently, because Dean is just not _getting_ it. He sighs explosively, crooking a finger to bring his brother closer. "Dean, c'mere- _C'mere_. Lemme tell you a secret."

"Okay, Sammy." Dean laughs, leaning in and it's not fair, really, it's not, with the _eyes_ and the _smile_ and the fucking _freckles_.

God, who wouldn't fall in gay incest love with this bastard?

"Ssssh," Sam quiets him, holding a finger over his lips to remind Dean and himself that no one's supposed to know about that part. "S'a secret."

"Got it, Sammy." Dean nods, just a hint of a grin playing at the corner of his mouth.

"Don't tell," Sam insists, because he _can't_, he's not _supposed_to.

"I won't," his brother promises with a full grin, bright and blinding and just for Sam, and god, if Dean could just smile at him like that for the rest of their fucking lives…

Sam cuts himself off, talking over his inner monologue because even halfway through a bottle of Patron, he can tell when a train of thought is headed straight for Morbid and Depressing Station.

"Stop picking out _me's_." He shakes his head at the parade of moussed and twinky and _wrong_ that Dean's been singling out all night. "And start-"

He has to steady himself on Dean's shoulder. Not because he's drunk, mind you, but because the barstool is wobbly.

The barstool and the bar.

And Dean. But he's warm, and his jacket smells like Old Spice and summer in the Impala, so Sam'll forgive him just this once.

"Start picking out _you's_," he finishes determinedly, and it's close, _so close_ to letting out The Big Secret, but somehow that doesn't seem to matter as much anymore. At least, not as much as having Dean here, warm and steady under his cheek, his only anchor in a wobbly, tilty, tequila-soaked world.

"Yeah, no," Dean dismisses with a snort as he picks up his drink. "All the me's in here would break you in half."

"Shyeah," Sam rolls his eyes. "Thus th' basis of their appeal."

Dean chokes on his beer and turns a really interesting shade of pink. It makes his eyes look greener and his freckles stand out even more under the tacky bar lights, and not only was their waiter way, way out of his league, but also Sam is _screwed_.

Except, you know, as previously stated, _not_.

'Cause anyone who was thinking about making a play for the lanky twink in the battered blue polo (if there was anyone. Sam's not exactly prize material on the best of nights, and he's not broadcasting signals for anyone or anything other than his laptop and the bottle they've been nursing at the moment and, okay, maybe his brother, just a little bit.) has been scared off by the leather-clad bruiser at his elbow.

The one who's been buying him drinks all night and glaring daggers at anyone who'd be even remotely interested in picking up what Sam's putting down.

God, and Dean wonders why people think they're a couple.

"Oh. I get it," Dean nods, clearing his throat and masking his blush in a swig of beer, and Sam tries to figure out why that is, until he remembers that he just admitted to his _brother_ that he's looking for his doppelganger to fuck him and leave bruises.

That tequila. Powerful stuff.

"No, you don't," Sam grumbles, sighing explosively into Dean's jacket sleeve as he slumps across the bar. "Which _sucks_."

"What don't I get, Sammy?" Dean asks, stubbornly, stupidly sober which isn't _fair_, 'cause he's had just as much to drink as Sam has. It's not fair that he and Dad are both so good at _tequila_ and _hunting_ and Sam is just good at _reading_ and _remembering stuff_, which is about as useful as this stupid, tilty bar and the fact that Jack the Sexy Bartender would have totally taken Sam out to the alley for fun and games four shots ago if Dean hadn't pulled his stupid butch mother bear thing and sent sexy Jack and his sexy cheekbones running for the fucking hills.

"Nothing's _fair_," Sam mumbles.

He lists for a moment before picking up, remembering what the hell he was so frustrated with in the first place.

"And the thing is, I don't even get why you don't get it. I mean," he reasons to Dean's elbow (Which is a good listener and doesn't have distracting things like green eyes or freckles or a smile that can make Sam forget that it's his fault Jess and their Mom are dead). "You're just… _dumb_. You're _smar__t_, but you're _dumb_."

He sits up, takes on Dean's stupid green eyes and freckles because someone has to, and if it's gonna be anyone in this bar, it's gonna be Sam,

"And I know you're not dumb," he slurs. "No one else does, but I do. I know you're smart about _books_ and _hunting_ and _Dad_ and _everything_, but you're dumb about _this_ and I don't know _why_."

"Sammy," Dean shakes his head with a stupid, bemused smile on his face that would be condescending on just about anyone else, but just manages to look damn good on him, which, just add that to the list of things that are _totally unfair_. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Duh," Sam rolls his eyes and drops back down to the bar, because if Dean's eyes won't participate in this fucking conversation, he's better off with his elbow. "S'what I've been sayin'."

"Okay, Sasquatch," Dean says, getting up. "I think you've had enough. Time to go home."

"Don' wanna," Sam whines, burrowing into his arms and shaking Dean's hand off when it lands on his shoulder.

"What, you gonna sleep here?" Dean laughs, getting a shoulder under Sam and levering him up and when is that gonna stop _working_ so well.

He's a _grownup_ now. He went to college and everything. If he wants to sleep on this wobbly-ass bar, he damn well should be able to.

It's not _fair_.

"S'better than Dad's creepy serial killer cabin," Sam mutters, slumping into Dean and blinking against the hangover he can already feel building.

"That was the last cabin," Dean reminds him, propping Sam up as the parking lot stubbornly refuses to say in one place. "This one's different."

"Shyeah," Sam snorts, burrowing into Dean's shoulder as his head pounds and the Impala's fender tilts beneath him. "S'got half th' doors an' twice th' No One Can Hear You Scream."

"What can I say, Sammy?" Dean shrugs. "We lead a charmed life. Come on, get in. I'm surprised Dad hasn't already called."

"Dad's stupid." Sam grumbles.

He aims for the passenger seat and cracks his head on the roof of the Impala instead.

"Dean, my head hurts," he whines miserably, letting Dean guide him into the passenger seat and check over the chunk of skull he's missing as the pounding grows and grows, pulls him away from Dean's fingers in his hair and the passenger seat of the Impala beneath him, drags him somewhere deeper, darker as he grabs his head, tries to hold it together as it does it's best to fly apart.

"You'll pull through," Dean assures, sympathetic and amused but then sharper, more worried as the pain grows, tightens, hits a fever pitch and has Sam crying out, voice high and strangled, and he can feel Dean's hands tighten and hear his voice call out, try and fail to pull Sam back to himself, "Sammy? Sam! You with me?!"

The vision hits like a punch in the gut, has Sam doubling over, curling in on himself against the pain, and it's faster this time, _so much_ faster, and there's no Impala beneath him or Dean above him, just the world getting ripped apart, just _Sam_ getting ripped apart, _shredded_ and _scattered_ and shoved back together, rearranged fiber by fiber, and there's the burn of turpentine in his nose and sulfur clogging up his lungs and laughing, laughing, harsh, cruel laughing and black eyes and blonde hair and a face, a face he _knows_, knows he knows, but it can't be, can't possibly be, because it's _dead_. Dead and gone out eight stories at the hands of shadow demons out for blood, out for revenge, and there's pine, pine and mountains and the park, cabins, not theirs but like theirs, and there's the baby, Bryan Boeffel and his family and _her_, Meg. Meg from Andover, Meg from Indiana, Meg from Chicago, Black Altar Meg, all white teeth and red leather, blood in the water as she smiles her shark smile and circles, closes in-

_Bites_.

And the world turns in on itself again, goes inside out and upside down and dumps Sam, wrung out and gasping, back to Dean, back to the Impala, back to himself, sweaty and shaking, the vision pounding him apart from the outside as the tequila takes him apart from the inside, and he can't move, can't breathe, can't with the clenching, writhing, twisting-

Dean's hunter reflexes save him from being covered in Sam's tequila vomit, but only just.

"It's okay, Sammy. Just breathe," he soothes, rubbing a hand over Sam's back, a slow, steady up and down that Sam's grateful for.

He's pretty sure he couldn't handle circles right now.

"Meg," he gasps, wincing against the sourness in his mouth and bracing himself against Dean. "She's here."

"Meg? Meg, Daeva Meg?" Dean asks, helping Sam sit up and passing him a bottle of water from the cooler in the back. "Meg Took-The-High-Dive-In-Chicago Meg? How's she still breathin'?"

"She's a demon," Sam gasps, gulping back water and motioning for Dean to get in the car, that's he's fine, that they need to get moving, that this is more important than Dean's fussing or Sam's shaking or the fact that he feels like he's been hollowed out with dynamite and slapped back together with battery acid.

"She _the_ Demon?" Dean demands, firing up the Impala and peeling out of the parking lot, and boy, does Sam's stomach _hate_ that, but they have to move, have to get to the family in time, have to get ahead of her, because if he pissed away any lead they might have had, if he missed his chance to save these people moping over his brother in a puddle of tequila-

"No," Sam shakes his head, tries to get a grip on himself, to _concentrate_, to sort out what he saw, what he didn't see, to figure out a game plan, to get their next move. "No yellow eyes, but she's moving on the family, getting close. Dean, we have to beat her there. We gotta stop her."

"Call Dad," Dean orders, tossing over his cellphone and flooring it. "He's still over there. He can get on the family."

And Sam has no idea what he's gonna say to Dad when he picks up the phone, how he's gonna explain where he and Dean are or what they were doing or why he knows what he knows, but there's a family whose lives are in the balance and a demon he let get away closing in on them, so he'll think of something.

He'll think of something if Dad will just pick up the damn phone-

"Where the hell are you boys?" Dad snaps as he answers, and Sam has never been so glad to be reamed out by his dad in his life.

"We know who the demon's targeting," he bursts out with no preamble. "It's a family in a cabin on the edge of the park. Last name's Boeffel. Address is 1896 County Road 116, and you need to get there _now__ ,_'cause the demons are closing in."

"And how the hell you know this?" John snaps on the other end, but Sam can hear the door to the truck slam, can hear the engine firing up and gears shift and the kick of gravel, even over the crappy country cell connection, so at least their Dad's moving. At least, no matter what happens next, someone's on their way to protect these people.

"Digital records for the family," Sam explains tightly, gripping the door handle as Dean does his best to break to sound barrier to get them back to Frozen Head. "As for the demons?"

He takes a deep breath, hoping like hell this works, hoping like hell it's enough. He can feel Dean's eyes on him from the driver's seat, can feel the moment stretch out, get tense and heavy until he grits out, lies, lies but makes it sound like an admission, "I got a _feeling_."

"You got a _feeling_, huh?" Dad gravels, but Sam doesn't hear brakes.

He doesn't hear brakes, and the world doesn't crumble out from beneath him, and maybe, just _maybe_, everything isn't lost. Maybe they can still salvage this.

"You feel anything else?" Dad snaps, and god, how much can Sam tell him? How much can Sam let on without giving away the fucking farm?

And then he remembers Sarah Boeffel's proud, tired smile. Baby Melissa's pure, soft pink onesie.

And Jess, cold and sad and a heartbeat from burning.

"Meg from Chicago," Sam bites out, and he can see Dean's eyes snap to him from the driver's seat. "The girl who took the swan dive. Got a feeling she's not as outta the picture as we thought."

"She a demon?" John demands in an eerie echo to Dean. "She _the_ Demon?"

"No," Sam shakes his head, sure, _positiv_e that if that were the case, he'd _know_. He'd have seen it. "But I got a feelin' she's close."

"And I got a feelin' I know _exactly_ who she is," John answers, sure and savage and every inch the hunter closing in, the promise of blood in his voice. "Get here. Be ready. This ends _tonight_."

"What'd he say?" Dean demands the second Sam snaps the phone shut.

"_Drive_."


	34. Chapter 34

They tear through highways and back roads, eating up the distance between Knoxville and Frozen Head in half the time it took them to get out there, but even with that, even with Dean pushing his baby to her limits, it still takes them the better part of half an hour to skid to a halt beside Dad's truck outside the Boeffel's cabin, to burst through the front door and into the room and find…

Nothing.

"Took you boys long enough," John gravels, lowering the shotgun he's got trained on them from the hall.

"Where are they?" Sam demands, he and Dean on their Dad's heels as he turns and makes his way down the corridor. "Where's the family? Did you get here in time?"

"Just in time," Dad nods, opening a door off the hallway and starting down a flight of dark, rickety stairs. "Family's safe. Packed 'em off. Jim's on his way to meet 'em, get 'em somewhere secure. As for your little girlfriend? Well, see for yourselves."

He smacks on the basement light and there, tied to a chair in a hastily scrawled devil's trap, is Meg, sporting the same red leather jacket and jeans from Chicago, complimented by a poisonous glare and strip of duct tape over her mouth with a Sharpied devil's trap right in the middle.

"Well, well," Dean chuckles, edging past Sam on the stairs to make his way into the basement. "Sweet Little Meg. She try to smoke out or did you just get tired of her runnin' her mouth?"

"Both," John answers stepping to Meg's seat in the center of the room with a harsh, satisfied twist to his mouth. "But I don't think she's gonna be tryin' that again anytime soon."

He tears the duct tape off with a sharp jerk.

"You 'bout ready to talk, sweetheart, or do you need some more 'You Time'?"

"You really think it's gonna be that easy, John Boy?" Meg snaps, glaring up at John. "You think I'm just gonna roll like all those other dumb patsies you got your hands on?"

"What's she talking about, Dad?" Sam asks, eyes going from the demon in the chair to his father in a heartbeat.

"You didn't tell 'em, John Boy?" Meg lets out a delighted laugh. "Frick and Frack here don't know why you sent Farmer Brown and the Little Missus running for the hills? What the poor, scared widdle civilians just couldn't know was going on in their own home?"

"Out with it," Dean snaps, and Sam honestly doesn't know whether he's talking to Dad or Meg. Either way, the hard, harsh glare in Dean's eyes doesn't spell sunshine and roses.

"Torture, boys," Meg announces sunnily, a devil's grin on her angel's face. "Daddy here's gonna carve me up like a Christmas turkey, I don't give him what he wants."

"That true, Dad?" Sam confirms, and it's not like he didn't suspect, just a little, but having her say it, having to imagine himself doing it…

"We need to know the Demon's plan," John answers tightly. "His name. We need to end this, Sam. She's got the answers we need, and she's gonna give 'em to us."

"Daddy dearest mention how there's a girl in here?" Meg pipes up sweetly, and her smile, her sure, triumphant grin, are all Sam needs to know that she was waiting, just _waiting_ for them to get here, just waiting for the wrench in the works.

"Come again?" Dean demands.

"Poor little Amherst Meg, scared and screaming and so, so alone," Meg coos sarcastically. "Worried what the big bad hunters are gonna do to get at the monster wearing her meatsuit."

"She tellin' the truth?" Dean bites out, shooting a glare at their Dad. "There really a girl in there?"

John doesn't say anything.

"She screaming, Dean," Meg taunts. "She knows what happens next. Knows what I know. Knows what Daddy here did in Sao Palo. In Seattle. _Philly_."

"You shut your mouth," John thunders.

"How'd you sleep after that one, John Boy?" Meg presses. "There wasn't even enough left of him to burn, was there?"

"Shut up!" he shouts, face twisting.

"All that _blood_," she continues. "All that _carnage_. All for what? _Nothing_. I get 'em after you're done, Johnny, and I know they're not sharin' _shit_. So tell me, John, are you really doin' it for the _leads_ anymore or do you just like to hear us scream?"

"Can it!" John snaps, slapping the duct tape back on and storming across the room, bracing himself on the wall and driving a fist into the concrete once, twice, as Meg's muffled laughter resounds through the basement.

Sam makes his way to John's side slowly. Dean comes up opposite him to flank their father and get a hand on his shoulder.

"Are we really gonna do this Dad?" Sam asks quietly. "Are we really gonna cut into that girl to get at the monster that stole her body?"

"She can't give us answers if she doesn't have a mouth!" Dad grinds out, harsh, angry, determined as he turns back to Meg, still strong, still glaring with that awful, infuriating smirk in eyes that aren't her own.

"So that makes it okay to torture an innocent girl?" Dean demands, and Sam is so, _so_ glad he's not alone on this one, so glad he's not the only one screaming out that this is wrong, so wrong. "Dad, I wanna nail this thing as much as you do, but-"

"You boys flung that body out an eight story window!" John snaps angrily, cutting them off. "You think a person can just _swallow_ that kind of abuse? Whoever that girl was is either long gone or not far from goin', no matter what that thing says!"

"So the fact that she might be _dying_, might be _alone_ and _scared_ and in _pain_, makes it okay to make her last moments alive absolute _agony?!_" Sam explodes. "What the hell side are you on, Dad?"

And he didn't mean to. Didn't mean to echo Meg's taunts so perfectly, but there's no taking the words back now, no swallowing them now that they're out there, echoing in the heavy, oppressive silence of the basement.

"I could be askin' you the same question, Sammy," John answers, low and deadly and dangerous, and god, Sam knew, he _knew_-

"Fine," Sam bites out, ripping the anti-possession charm from his neck and throwing it to clink uselessly on the cold concrete floor of the basement. "You need a body to cut into? Use mine."

"What?!"

"Sammy!"

"I'll get in the devil's trap. You exorcise her," Sam snaps. "She jumps to me, you can do whatever the hell you want, but Meg? The real Meg? She goes free."

"That's not happening," Dean snarls, stepping between Sam and the trap scrawled on the stark concrete floor of the basement.

"Sam-" Dad balks, pales, and if nothing else, if nothing else Sam at least has that.

At least he has the fact that Dad hesitated before-

"Sammy, Sammy, Sammy," Meg laughs from behind them. "That right there? That fight you got in you? It's part of what makes you my favorite."

And when they turn, look at the girl in the chair, her eyes aren't black anymore.

They're_yellow__._


	35. Chapter 35

There's a quick, hot lick of fire, the briefest kick of sulfur burning in his nose, and then Sam is crashing against the wall, pinned to the concrete block between Dean and Dad by invisible, iron-strong bands across his chest, his arms, as Meg, Meg-But-Not-Meg, shakes off her seared and smoking ropes and stands, strolls her way right out of the devil's trap and over to them, cat-got-the-cream grin creeping across her face.

"Oh, Johnny," Yellow Eyes hums through a smooth, satisfied smirk that Sam's never seen on Meg's pixie face. It doesn't belong to her, not to the cute, quipping con Sam met in Indiana, not to the purring, black-eyed bitch that wrapped herself around him as shadow demons closed in in Chicago, not to the snarling, smirking lieutenant, tied but not taken, that was trapped in front of them just seconds ago.

This is something different, something new, something that belongs to the yellow eyes glaring up at him, to the soft, excited murmurs at the corners of his visions-

_You're my favorite, Sam…_

"All these _years_, all those _decades_ hunting me, and you had me right here. Right under your nose," she taunts their Dad, tightening the invisible bonds trapping them for just a second, just to show she can, yellow eyes bright and shining in the basement light. "You were so sure you'd know the _second_ you laid eyes on me. That you'd just _know_."

She chuckles lowly.

"Tell me, Johnny," she whispers, superior and vicious and so, so _sure_. "How long was it me in here and not my girl? Five minutes? _Ten_? Was she ever here at all?"

"How the hell-" John grits out, but Yellow Eyes is there, smirking and laughing and cutting him off.

"Oh, _Johnny_. You really think a little salt and scribble could keep _me_ out? Come on." She winks. "You should know better than that."

"And Meg?" Sam grunts, needing to know, to know if he's been up against the thing that killed Mom, the thing that murdered Jess, off and on since Indiana, if the filthy bastard that killed her in cold blood picked him up off the side of the road, sat across from him and listened and-

"Well, my girl's good," Yellow Eyes smirks from Meg's pixie face, derailing Sam's train of thought, "but she's not that good. Not yet."

Yellow Eyes takes a step back and gestures to the shabby, wrecked basement around them.

"Hate to break it to you boys, but your little mountain getaway? Ma and Pa Clampett's happy home? It's got leaks. One little drip," she crooks her finger and a thin, steady trickle of water makes its way through the salt line, down the wall, and across the floor to draw a _second_ needle-thin break in the devil's trap on the floor, "and the best laid plans of mice and men…"

Sam hears his dad suck in a sharp, furious breath.

"Don't worry about sayin' your goodbyes, Sammy," Yellow Eyes continues. "She likes you. Thinks you're fun to rile up. I'm sure you two'll have chance to" she clears her throat with a chuckle, quirking Meg's eyebrows at Sam, "_cross swords_ again, if you take my meaning."

And Sam can feel the heat rise in his cheeks, the hot, shameful memories from that warehouse in Chicago, of just how far he had to go with Meg before he was able to cut himself free, Dean gasping and swearing beside him, watching and hating the whole goddamn thing.

"It suddenly strikes me," Yellow Eyes announces, strolling around the basement, voice Sunday-in-the-park easy and hands clasped behind her back, "that in all of this runnin' around, the plotting and scrambling back and forth, the grand plots for _justice_ and _revenge_ for Mommy and Sweet Little Jessica."

She sighs, looking up at Sam, not with regret, but with sick, amused irony in those fucking yellow eyes.

"Dearest, darling, dead Jess. The only _truly_ innocent one in all of this."

She takes a step closer to John, mouth quirking up at the corner.

"Sammy was gonna marry her, Johnny," she whispers conspiratorially, and it's black, awful having something so close- so _secret_- something he never even told _Dean_ laid out and picked apart by the same soulless bitch that killed her. "He ever tell you that? Had a ring all picked out."

Yellow Eyes paces back over to Sam, a soft, sympathetic look pasted across Meg's face in a twisted parody of the character she'd played in Indiana.

"She'd have said 'yes', Sam. And why wouldn't she?" she asks, patting Sam's cheek, and laughing as Sam thrashes, struggles against the bands, the tight, invisible hands trapping him against the wall, fights to get away. "You're a _catch_, Sammy."

Yellow Eyes shrugs easily.

"Of course, none of that matters now," she says. "Regardless, with all the _subterfuge_ and _secrets_ flying around these days, I think it's time we all sat down and had ourselves a little chat. Cleared the air, as it were."

"Got nothin' to say to you," Sam hears his Dad growl.

"'Cept 'burn in Hell'," Dean adds.

"Oh, but if only that were true, Johnny," Yellow Eyes grins, with a dismissive flick in Dean's direction that has him twisting against the wall and gritting his teeth against a scream. "Why, you were so keen to get some answers out of my girl earlier, I'd bet you got a whole buncha questions for me. And by the way, Sammy?"

She tilts her head in Sam's direction, gives him a grin.

"Thanks for bein' the voice of reason in that one. Why, I think of my darling daughter in the hot seat—" She feigns wiping away a tear, then levels a predator's grin in Sam's direction. "Of what a bitch it would be to sneak my way in here with Johnny goin' all Guantanamo on this fine, upstanding citizen? What. A. Headache."

She shrugs.

"Nonetheless," she says, giving Sam a smack on the chest and striding to stand in front of John, "you've got questions, I've got answers. Let's hear 'em, Johnny. Bet I know what's at the top of the list."

"Don't—" their Dad grits out with a glare.

"Come on, Johnny," Yellow Eyes taunts, leaning in. "You been burning through my boys for _months_ trying to figure it out. I'm right here. I could tell you, just like that."

"NO," John snaps.

"Just how much," Yellow Eyes whispers, planting a hand on John's chest and looking over at Sam, taunting grin on Meg's face. "How much of sweet little Sammy, your bouncing baby boy, belongs to _you_ and how much did I steal away all those years ago?"

She leans up, gets Meg on her tip toes as the shock steals the breath from Sam's chest and the feeling from his hands.

"You wanna know if he's in there at all, John?" Sam hears her whisper to John over the roaring in his ears, Meg's voice taunting, laughing. "If I've been playing you from the night Little Miss Mary burned?"

"What's he talkin' about, Dad?" Sam demands, forces out through the tightness in his chest, the fists clenched around him.

"Oh, but he doesn't _know_, does he?" Yellow Eyes crows, laughing, giving John a familiar, chiding smack. "See, John Boy, this is why our little chat had to happen. Can't have all those secrets staying buried, festering, souring the soil. Gotta get 'em out. The truth will set you free, as they say."

She gives Sam a winning grin.

"You see, Sammy, what Daddy dearest and dumb old Dean-o have been keepin' locked up tight is just _why_ you're so extra special," she starts, and why did she say Dean's name? _Why did she say Dean's name?_ "Just why you get those super fun visions, those little peeks at whatever pie I've got my finger in at the moment."

Yellow Eyes looks up, shoots a wink in Dad's direction.

"Oh, but John Boy didn't know about those, did he?" she says, shaking her head. "Tsk, tsk. Secret secrets, never fun, Sammy. Secret secrets hurt someone."

She crosses back over to stand in front of John.

"Didn't you ever wonder, Johnny?" she taunts. "Just how he happened to have the hottest leads? The most up to the minute info? It's 'cause he's been getting peeks at the playbook. Little hints of the master plan, shot directly into that big, _beautiful_ brain of his."

She steps back, laughing.

"And let me just say, John Boy, after toying with your Stone Age ass for the last twenty years? It is _refreshing_ to finally square off with someone who can navigate the information superhighway."

Yellow Eyes grins.

"Why, I wasn't in town more than a couple days before little Sammy here had you and Dean-o hot on my heels. What d'ya think, Johnny? If you were workin' this thing alone, you think you'd have made it in time to hit town before Ma and Pa Clampett burned? Or would you have just read about their oh-so-tragic deaths in the local paper a week later?"

John growls, thrashes against the invisible bonds pinning him to the basement wall.

"But then, nothing's certain," Yellow Eyes says. "Maybe sweet, simple what's-her-name would have slept through the cuddly little tyke's fussing. Maybe Papa would have been too bushed from a day tromping through the woods to hear me doing my good works."

"Which is what, exactly?" John grits out.

"Oh, Johnny. No need to play coy with me." Yellow Eyes wags a finger. "I know you've been on my boys for a while now, got a few tasty tidbits outta 'em. If you don't know for sure, I'd bet you've at least got a pretty damn good guess."

She steps up to their Dad, a challenge in her eyes.

"So hit me, John. What've I been doing all these years, sneaking into good girls and boy's beds and leaving 'em… _special_?"

"Demon blood," John growls. "You're giving 'em demon blood."

"Right in one, Johnny," Yellow Eyes grins. "Just a few drops when they're small? Better than mother's milk. Makes 'em grow up big and strong. Well, bigger and stronger, in Sammy's case. It gives 'em that little extra _jolt_, and when they're grown? Oh, that's when the _real_ fun starts."

And there it is. That's why.

That's why Sam can see the future. That's why he could destroy that cabinet in Illinois. That's why Mom is dead. That's why Jess burned.

That's why he's felt wrong, known he was different, less, his entire life.

He has demon blood.

And Dean knew.

Dean knew, and he didn't tell him.

"Of course, it can be a little unpredictable, giving the little tykes the special sauce. Mommies and daddies interrupt. Accidents happen."

She shrugs, dismissive, waving away _Mom_ and _Jess_ and their whole _lives_ as just the cost of doing her sick, twisted business.

"But the results? Well, they are spectacular. _Powers_, Johnny," she goes on, wonder in her voice. "Powers like you've never _seen_. God, the things they can _do_, the little gems I've got sleeping out there, waiting, just _waiting_. And your Sammy? With his visions?"

And the way she looks at Sam, the promise in her eyes, the excitement, it turns his blood from the steamy, hot rush of shock to the cold, sudden freeze of fear.

"I couldn't have planned it better myself," Yellow Eyes says in a low, almost reverent voice. "He's my favorite, Johnny. My very favorite. You helped with that. Made sure he grew up strong, grew up smart. Grew up in the know, training, preparing. Gettin' him all ready for us."

"For what?" Sam demands, icy licks of fear searing right into cold, hard anger. "What the hell is this all _for_?"

"Sammy my boy, they just don't tell you _anything_, do they?" She laughs. "Tell 'em, Johnny. Tell 'em just what I've got in store for our special boy here."

John glares at her silently.

"Come on, Johnny. Don't go clammin' up on me now," Yellow Eyes bites, drawing close with a thin, sharp edge of menace cutting Meg's voice. "This is only fun if we all do our part."

"Why don't you do your part and go fuck yourself?" Dean snaps from Sam's side.

"Oh Dean-o, there is that razor sharp wit I have heard so much about." She rolls Meg's eyes, and then pauses, a slow smile spreading across her face. "But then, I bet if Johnny knows, he's told you. Told his precious, perfect firstborn. His gun hand. His born soldier."

She draws closer, sizing Dean up with a grin.

"Oh, if we'd only had a chance at you…" Yellow Eyes says with a sigh of regret. "But what can you do? Missed our window, I guess. Doesn't mean you still can't share with the class. So tell baby brother, Dean. What's behind Door Number One? What're we gettin' him good and ready for?"

"Never gonna happen," Dean grits out, which means he knows. Knew everything, everything Dad did and never told Sam, and something in Sam just- just _breaks_ at that, breaks and settles in his stomach, sharp and sour, twisting the knife of that much more.

"Wrong, Dean-o, but nice try," Yellow Eyes shoots back. "I'll give you another go, though, and this time, if you don't feel in the sharin' mood, I'll take it out of dear old Daddy."

She crosses over to their Dad and snatches up one of his hunting knives, drawing it toyingly from his wrist to his stomach and back again, silver blade glinting in the harsh flicker of the basement fluorescents.

"The only question is," she muses, "should I take a _hand_, or a _kidney_? Decisions, decisions..."

At Dean's silence, she digs the knife in over John's hand, dragging a sharp, agonized groan from their Dad.

"Tick, Tock, Dean," Yellow Eyes snaps. "Don't make me break somethin' that can't be fixed."

"An army," Dean snarls. "You're building an army."

"That's right, Dean-o. Thank you for playing," she congratulates, all smooth smiles again as she waves the bloody knife illustratively. "Change is coming, boys, and Sammy? The kids just like him? They're gonna help us bring in a _grand_ new age."

"The hell I am," Sam growls, pissed, _beyond_ pissed. Pissed at _Dad_ and pissed at _Dean_ and more than anything, pissed at _her_, filled with a black, burning hatred that roils, rises, threatens to swallow him whole.

"That is _exactly_ right, Sammy. _Exactly right_." Yellow Eyes nods, stepping close, and she might have taken Jess, might have taken Mom, might have taken things from Sam in his cradle that Sam didn't even know he could lose, but there are some things, some things this bitch will never be able to take from him-

_"Exorcizamus te, omnis immunds spiritus,"_he starts from memory, sharp and exact and as fast as he can, livid and laser-focused as the words roll off his tongue. "_Omnis satanica potestas_—"

But then the steel-strong bands pinning him down shoot up, send his jaw snapping shut and his head kicking back to meet the cold, hard cinderblock at his back with enough force to send stars shooting across his line of light, his teeth rattling in his head as Dean calls his name and swears at his side.

"And he speaks _Latin_." Yellow Eyes laughs, the sound burning his ears. "You're just the gift that keeps on givin', aren't ya, Sammy?"

She draws close, brings a hand up to drag down across Sam's cheek in a sick parody of a caress that has his skin crawling.

"Just for that," she says softly. "Just for showing me that little spark in you that I just_love_, I'm gonna give you peek. Just a little taste of what's to come."

And suddenly the hand on his cheek is stretching up, reaching out, fingers pressing to Sam's temple as he's hit with a vision like he's never had before, like he's only been getting them half strength, and this is pure, uncut insanity, streaming into his temple straight from the source, and there's nothing, nothing but pain, nothing but fire, falling face first into a volcano. Pure, molten agony, screaming and twisting inside of his veins, roaring through him and drowning out everything, shredding his skin and blasting through his bones and incinerating the concrete at his back, his brother at his side, burning away everything in him but what those searing, laughing yellow eyes want him to see.

Burning.

Screaming.

The Colt.

A door that's half Devil's Trap wheeling open an instant before Sam, eyes black and face twisted, leads a cadre of pitch-eyed soldiers across the ruined landscape, clouds of soot-dark smoke wheeling, racing above their heads, and monsters, nightmare creatures made of bone and blood and torment at their feet, and destruction, nothing but lifeless, hopeless, endless destruction in their wake as Sam, the Boy King, treads over the bodies of everyone he ever loved on his path to conquer the Earth in Hell's name.

"Like I said, Sammy," Yellow Eyes whispers, soft and full of promise, as she lets her fingers drop, as she lets _Sam_ drop, gasping and choking to the cold concrete floor, pain tearing through his body, limbs not his own as the aftershocks of the vision rip through him, send him shuddering, seizing, shaking apart from the inside out, "I got plans for you. _Big plans_."


	36. Chapter 36

The second Yellow Eyes smokes out, leaves Meg to drop like a puppet with its strings cut, Dean falls to the floor, is crawling, scrambling to Sammy's side, holding his little brother, steadying him as he shakes, _seizes_, falls apart, body and soul, face twisted in pain as he shudders, _shatters_, on the frigid, unforgiving concrete in the wake of whatever the hell it was Yellow Eyes made him see.

And this can't be it, can't be how it ends, the ground falling out from under Dean as Sammy shakes himself to death on cold floor of a Tennessee cabin, Yellow Eyes in the wind as whatever the hell that monster did to his baby brother rips him apart from the inside, because the look on Sammy's face, that look when he heard about the blood, when that smirking bitch told him that Dean knew, knew everything John knew...

It can't end on something like that. It just _can't_.

Not without Sammy understanding, _knowing_ how much it burned Dean, made him sick not telling. Not without them fixing this, getting a lock on whatever's going on with Sam and justice for Mom and Jess, and not without Sam waking up, waking up and giving him the bitchface to end all bitchfaces, calling him a jerk and sulking in the passenger seat, playing whiny emo crap on the radio until Dean's served his goddamn time.

But none of that can happen if Sam doesn't wake the hell up already, doesn't do somethin' other than convulse himself to death on the floor of this fucking basement and Sammy just keeps shaking and keeps shivering and keeps groaning, harsh, punched-out gusts like he's getting his insides torn out, like Yellow Eyes is still there, landing hit after hit straight to Sammy's gut and and there's not a damn thing Dean can do, not a damn thing, outside of holding Sammy tight as he goddamn can, pulling him close and digging his forehead hard into the place where tangled, sweat-soaked curls meet the stiff, straining cords of Sammy's neck and just holding on, holding on hard and fast to his one last good goddamn thing and if he loses this, if this is it-

He fucking swears, swears that if by some miracle they both find their way through this, he's never keeping another damn thing from Sam again, not one. And maybe Dean's an idiot, maybe he's stupid as all hell and seeing things that aren't there, lying to himself, seeing what he wants instead of what is, but it feels like the shaking's getting better, passing a little more with each frantic, stuttering beat of Dean's heart, but that doesn't do a damn thing go for the cold sweat that's sprung up at his hairline, does fuck all for making thinking or blinking or goddamn breathing any easier as he holds Sammy tight against the shudders still echoing through him, fists a hand in his stupid, girly hair and just wills him, pushes with everything he's got for Sam get through this, to wake up, to just wake up and be o-fucking-kay, because without that? Without that, none of it matters.

None of any of it matters.

"Sammy," Dean demands. "Sammy, come on. Open your eyes, man." His bark breaks, shaking and shivering with Sam to fade into a beg, scared and unsteady as Dad stays nothing but a dark, silent shadow at his shoulder.

"He usually like this after a vision?" Dad demands tightly, practically spitting out the word as Dean checks Sam over for bleeding, feels frantically for a pulse, fever, something, _anything_ that he missed, anything outside of Yellow Eyes fucking with Sammy AGAIN that'd explain why the hell his baby brother won't stop shivering, won't open his fucking eyes, won't just wake the fuck up.

"That- what Yellow Eyes did to him?" Dean shakes his head, not looking at John, not looking anywhere but Sammy, his universe narrowed down to closed eyes and shallow breaths and his fingers, tamped over pale, clammy skin and faint, sluggish pulse, Dean's world turning on that one slow, steady beat. "That wasn't normal. Wasn't what it's usually like."

"Good," Dad nods, moving to toe over the pale, bleeding blonde on the floor, "Means Yellow Eyes hasn't been feedin' him tips."

"You wanna forget about the fucking demon for a second and worry about your goddamn son?" Dean snaps.

And he doesn't have time for the sharp, shocked look Dad shoots him, because Sammy's heaving in his arms, coming to with a jolt and a gasp, his eyes shooting wildly around the basement.

"Sammy, thank god," Dean breathes, crushing his little brother to him and shaking, dizzy with relief when the first thing Sam does is clumsily wrap his arms around him, weakly dig his face into the crook of Dean's neck. "Don't scare me like that again."

He huffs out on a weak laugh, pulling Sammy back and checking over his face, his temperature, his heartbeat, making sure, making damn sure that yellow-eyed bastard didn't do anything to him.

Didn't do anything _else_ to him.

"Yellow Eyes," Sam pants, eyes darting to the girl who was Meg as he braces himself against Dean, moves to stand up.

"He's gone," Dean assures, holding Sam steady as he lumbers to his feet. "Hey, hey, take it easy, Sammy."

But Sam's not listening, half-stumbling, half-falling across the basement to get to the girl taking faint, rasping breaths in a bloody heap on the floor.

"Meg? Come on Meg, open your eyes, look at me," Sam mutters, cradling her face and checking her pulse, and for a second, Dean thinks Sammy's really lost it, is crawling after the black-eyed bitch that's made their lives merry hell for the past few months, and then he realizes that's not the black-eyed bitch's name. Sam's calling out for the blonde girl from Amherst, the poor, sad civvie who had her body hijacked by the Hell crowd, used up and worn out, beaten and broken on behalf of a demonic bitch and her yellow-eyed bastard of a boss.

"Sam…" she whispers, cracking her eyes open and gripping Sammy's hand weakly. "I'm sorry. So sorry."

Meg, but not Meg. The real Meg. The girl Meg stole, gasps, chokes, forces the words out through blood and bile and the pain of months of being used and abused by that black eyed bitch.

"Hold on, just hold on. Help's coming, okay? You're gonna be okay," Sam assures her, but he's gotta know, just like Dean knows, what it means when someone's chokin' up blood that color, when they're this far out in the middle of nowhere and she's been put through who-knows-what by Meg-but-not-Meg for who knows how long...

"Her name-" she gasps, stubbornly making the words come out, fighting it despite the fact that her face's getting paler by the minute. "I heard her- her name-"

"Ssh, shh," Sam hushes, hands skating over the girl's body, trying to find a wound to apply pressure to, trying to do something, _anything_ to help. "Don't try and talk."

"Sa- Salome," she breathes, just as her eyes get distant, as they fade, fall dark as the shivering stops, the pain stops…

As everything stops.

"Get up," John barks after a second, snagging a duffle from by the basement steps and making for the stairs.

"What?" Dean blinks stupidly, eyes darting from Dad to Sam, still holding the body of the girl Meg was, hand halfway to closing her eyes for good as he glares up at their dad.

"We gotta get a move on," John gravels, jerking his head at the steps. "Wastin' time here."

"But Dad-" Dean protests, looking helplessly between Sam and Meg on the floor, Sam crossing her hands on her chest, and Dad, standing as forbidding as a thunderhead on the first step.

"I said _move_, son," John repeats icily. "We have the lieutenant's name. We gotta move, get ready to summon her before she can lock herself into a new body."

"Before she can what?" Sam bites out.

He steps forward to stand at Dean's elbow before he stiffens, remembers. Before his eyes narrow, and he takes another step, faces John directly, and Dean doesn't know why that hurts as much as it does. He knew it was coming, 'cause Sam knows everything now, and he knows Dean knew before he did, kept it secret for three long, lonely days, and why did Yellow Eyes have to shoot his goddamn mouth off? Why'd he have to get Sammy pissed and off kilter and steppin' straight into the line of fire as they set up for the biggest fight of their lives?

"Binding link," John answers shortly, snatching a battered book from the duffle and smacking it open to a post-it noted page showing an etching of a brand, a circle with a single hash through it. "If she burns it into whoever she's ridin', there's no summoning her ass, name or no. Now you wanna stand around here askin' questions or you wanna get a move on and call up that goddamn demon?"

"Let's move, then." Sam nods, setting up the stairs after John without looking behind him, leaving Dean in the dust with dead Meg and all their damn secrets, dug up and left to rot in the open air.

"Keep your phone on. I'll send you coordinates," John snaps when they reach the cars. "In the meantime, we need a body. Hit the county morgue, get somethin' fresh, and be quick about it."

"Come again?" Dean demands, clearly missing somethin' here.

"You two're so dead set on not hurtin' a livin' soul, guess we gotta find a workaround," John shrugs, firing up the truck. "Get a move on, and remember to cover your tracks. Last thing we need is a side of bacon with this fuckin' fiasco."

"Get the gun," Sam orders as soon as their dad peels off, jerking his chin at the trunk before snatching open the door to the Impala and flinging himself inside. "We're not goin' up against that thing shooting blanks again. I don't care what Dad finds out."

"Sam," Dean tries, but Sam just cuts him off.

"I don't wanna hear it, Dean," Sam snaps, and Dean just sighs hard, stalks to the trunk and digs out the Colt, shoving in the inside pocket of his jacket before getting in and firing his girl up in the weak dawn light.

"Sammy, come on," he tries again as soon as they get goin', but Sam's still not lettin' him go that route.

"I don't wanna hear it, Dean," Sam grinds out, punching in a number on his phone, his face stone hard and tight with anger.

"Sam," Dean starts, but Sam cuts him off, tossing the phone to the floorboards.

"_Demon blood_, Dean?!" he explodes. "I've got _demon blood_ in me? But no, not just that! I'm supposed to go Dark Side, help Yellow Eyes wipe out the world, and you _knew! _You _knew_, and you don't- you _didn't_—"

His eyes narrow, his face hard and twisted with anger.

"How long have you known?" he demands. "Since we met up with Dad? _Longer?_"

"What?" Dean sputters. "Sam, _no_. He only told me a few days ago, Sammy, I _swear_."

"You've known I was part demon for _days_, and you didn't—"

Sam breaks off, swallows hard, and Dean can see him fraying, see him swallow down on the fear and the tears and the need to just fly apart in a hundred different directions. Sees him latch on to the anger and hold tight, hold on to being angry, angry at Dad, angry at Dean, angry at himself and Yellow Eyes and the whole damn universe instead of being scared, of letting the fear take over.

"Were you ever gonna tell me?" Sam grits out, squeezing his eyes shut, every inch of him tense to the breaking point.

"Sammy- Sammy, of course I was," Dean protests, but it sounds weak even to his own ears. "I was just… I was _gonna_. Swear to god, the night he told me? I was gonna tell you that night, I _swear_, but then you came in with the Colt and started poppin' visions, and then there was Little Rock and—"

"So this is _my_ fault?" Sam explodes, disbelieving.

"No, dammit,," Dean snaps because this is _wrong_, it's all happening _wrong_, so wrong. "It's _mine_. It's all mine, and I should have told you. I should have, Sammy, but you were always, always on the edge, and then shit just started _happening_ and I couldn't and I'm _sorry_."

And when Sam opens his mouth, starts to protest, it's Dean who cuts him off. It's Dean who sticks to his guns, because _he's_ the bad guy here. He fucked up. He owns to that, but if he's gonna hang for this, goddammit, Sam's gonna stop to hear him out before he strings up the rope.

Even cowards get last words.

"I'm sorry," Dean fumes. "Sorry I was too chicken shit to tell you. Sorry that when Dad said you were a monster I wouldn't believe him. Sorry I couldn't buy it for the world. Sorry that instead of tellin' you the thing that killed Mom and Jess fucked around with you when you were a baby, gave you visions and a draft card to the Devil's own army, I kept my mouth shut. Sorry I couldn't look at the stack of shit you deal with on a daily basis and add 'demon blood' to the pile."

Sam's mouth is a tight, straight line, but Dean keeps pressing, keeps spilling his guts all over the floorboard, because what the hell does he have to lose?

"I'm sorry," he spits out, "that I would rather have killed this thing, have it dead and damned and for all this to be over without you ever knowin' what that sick fuck was up to all those years ago."

He swallows, punching down harder on the accelerator.

"I'm sorry," he repeats, quieter this time, fainter.

Sam's face twists, still hard, still angry, but whatever he has to say about that is cut off by the shrill ring of his cellphone from the floorboards.

"Yeah?" Sam growls into the receiver, smacking the speaker button as an afterthought as he slaps the phone onto the dash and digs a legal pad out from beneath the seat.

"Well, someone woke up on the wrong side of the goddamn bed," Bobby snaps from the other end of the phone. "Don't usually hear you this full of sunshine and daisies, Sam. Who shit in your cornflakes?"

"Dad. Dean. The whole fucking universe," Sam snaps. "We're about to steal a body from the Morgan Country Medical Center, Bobby. You get a call, can you cover us?"

"Yeah," Bobby tosses back, "and as a special favor, I won't mention your piss poor fuckin' attitude. What the hell happened to you boys?"

"We had a run in with the demon, Bobby," Dean cuts in before Sam can open his mouth. "It went bad."

"How bad?"

"Bout as bad as it could go with no one endin' up missin' limbs or dead," Dean hedges, eyes darting to Sam, still tight with fury in the passenger seat. "While we got you Bobby, you got anything on a demon named Salome?"

"Salome like New Testament Salome?" Bobby asks. "Herodias's daughter? With the seven veils and the head of the Baptist?"

"We don't know," Sam cuts in, "but it's the only name we got for this thing, and Dad's dead set on summoning it tonight."

"Well, I'll see what I can do." Bobby huffs, books already rustling in the background. "You boys be careful."

"We will, Bobby."

"Thanks," Sam adds before hanging up the phone, and it's softer, quieter, the least angry he's been since… well, since.

"You coulda told him," Dean offers softly. "It's Bobby. He wouldn't care."

"Or he could care," Sam snorts bitterly, "and we'd be shit out of luck when the MEs do a head count and come up one stiff short."

"Sammy—"

"Don't 'Sammy' me, Dean," Sam bursts out. "You didn't tell me! I have demon blood in me, and I'm gonna end the fucking world. You _knew_, and you didn't tell me!"

Dean looks away without meaning too, eyes scanning over the radio, the dash, his own hands gripping tight on the steering wheel.

"You know that's what I saw, right?" Sam presses. "What Yellow Eyes made me see? The vision that felt like it was gonna kill me back there? It was his fucking plan. My fucking _destiny!_ Me, eyes black and skies burning, leading the goddamn army that ends the world and stepping right over your dead body to do it!"

Sam flings himself back in the passenger seat, scrubbing a hand over his eyes.

"I thought if anyone," he mutters, "anyone in the _world_ would- And you were pissed that I didn't _come out_ to you?! While you were sitting on _this?!__"_

"Sam," Dean tries again, sick and miserable and so, so stupid. "_Please_."

"No," Sam refuses, shutting him down. "No. Not now. Not today. Maybe not _ever_."

"Sam," Dean begs, because they're_them_. They're who they are, and Sam loves this talky bullshit, and if they can't get past this, if his stupidity has lost him his little brother, if they go into this fucking fight pissed at each other and one or both of them don't make it out-

"I don't wanna hear it, Dean!" Sam snaps. "I wanna break into this fucking hospital. I wanna do our fucking job. I wanna summon Meg or Salome or whatever the hell her name is and get some goddamn answers, because as I'm sure you've guessed, I've got a few questions about the goddamn demon blood inside me and my apocalyptic goddamn destiny. You know, all the shit you and Dad both knew about, but didn't bother to share with me!"

He throws himself back against the seat again.

"God!" he bursts out. "So much for knowing whose goddamn side you're on."

"Sam, it wasn't like that," Dean pleads quietly, even if it sets Sammy off again, because this was never, _ever_ about choosing Dad over Sam. "I—"

He stutters, feels the fucking heat rise in his cheeks, and can he just get the fuck over it? Just this _once_?

"I did this for you," he forces out, fighting the urge to squeeze his eyes shut, because he is _driving_, dammit, and they've had enough close goddamn calls tonight. "I was trying to protect you."

"By lying to me," Sam snap. "By throwing in with Dad, of all fucking people, and lying to me."

Dean's already said he's sorry.

He's already said he's sorry, and he can't say that he was never not gonna tell Sam the truth, because that'd be another goddamn lie, so Dean just presses down on the accelerator, burns rubber to the hospital and lets Sammy stew it out in the fucking passenger seat and hopes like hell that somewhere between here and the morgue, somewhere between here and wherever the hell Dad is sniffing out to call up not-Meg and pry what they need out of her, somewhere between here and finally facing off with the goddamn demon, he and Sammy can fix this.

Somewhere, somehow, he's got to be able to fix this.


	37. Chapter 37

They ransack the morgue in silence, heft the body of a school teacher who bit it in a hit-and-run into the trunk of the Impala with a practiced, wordless ease that does nothing to bridge the gaping, yawning gap between them, and make for the coordinates Dad sends, all without saying a word.

Dean's never had a problem with silence. You drive as much as they do, live day in and day out in each other's pockets, the conversation is gonna lapse.

Sometimes the silent times are the best times. Soft, sleepy mornings in, making the decision to hit snooze, to sleep past checkout and stay another night when the bruises from last night's hunt're just too much to drive on. That quick, hot lick of eye contact across a smoky pool table the instant a shaky-handed mark puts the big money down. Silent nights in the middle of nowhere, watching the Milky Way wheel across the sky.

Times when words just get in the way.

… But this isn't one of those times.

This is an awful, awkward, aching vacuum in the Impala, Sam putting anger through its paces in the front seat, reading Dean the Riot Act without ever saying a world, radiating fury and hurt and betrayal, all without saying a thing as the hot, heady fever pitch of his betrayal crests and crashes into Sam, sorrowful and silent and folded in on himself as they pull up to Dad's latest demon-summoning safe house, a musty, falling down hunting lodge an hour north of Frozen Head.

It's clear no one's used the place in years. There's dust on every flat surface, the cabinets are warped and peeling, the carpets mottled and moldering, but the walls are solid, the windows shut tight and painted over, the doors in and out of the place heavy and weatherproofed all to hell.

No more leaks.

No more surprises.

They haul in the body from the trunk without saying a word. Dad's already coating the grey-brown carpet with the stark, white lines of a devil's trap as they step over the duct-taped arc of salt at the door to drop their stolen corpse on the couch.

John looks up, gives them a quick once-over, and jerks his chin at the listing door across the room, gaping open to reveal an ancient stove and an even older ice box standing guard over a chipped, battered oak table.

"Summoning'll be ready soon," John gravels, not looking up from the hiss of aerosol, the steady, regular lines of a pentagram taking shape beneath his feet. "I'll deal with this. You get some food into your brother. He's not gonna be worth much to anyone, he keels over."

"So he's my brother again, huh?" Dean asks quietly as he watches Sam storm silently into the kitchen and throw himself into one of the cracking folding chairs at the table, never once looking at John or Dean.

"Dean, your brother-" John sighs, letting the can of spray paint fall to the carpet with a muffled 'thump' but not looking up either, and Dean knows, knows and hates that he knows, that he can't blame the Yellow Eyed bastard for the fact that none of them can meet each other's eye.

They did this. He and Dad.

All Yellow Eyes did was get it out in the open.

"No," Dean interrupts, cutting him off, cutting off whatever fucking unhelpful homily or justification or excuse the old man was about to offer, 'cause really, at this point? What does it fucking help?

If Dad were to open his mouth right this second and set off about how he was wrong about Sammy, how he should never have thought for even a _second_ that Sam was anything other than Dean's little brother, how he should have just answered the fucking phone all those goddamn months ago, how he should have picked up and pitched in and put his head together with them about this whole goddamn mess, how he should have been open with them about the demon's plans, how he should have let them all tackle this as a team, how he should have worked with them instead of around them, how they should have acted like the fucking family he always said they were—

Well. Him sayin' that wouldn't change a goddamn thing, would it?

It'd still leave them standin' in this latest fucking cabin (Cabins and basements. Dean swears to fucking god...), Dad lookin' everywhere but at Dean as he sprays the world's most precise pentagram on the musty carpet. It'd still leave Sammy holdin' himself together by a thread at the table, doin' his best not to let Dean and John hear the hitches in his breathing, the slow, steady 'plop' of tears against hardwood.

It'd still leave Dean standing between his Dad and his brother without a place by either, and now is _not_ the time for his existential fucking crisis, goddammit.

They're hunting the demon.

They' hunting the demon, and it's Dad's twisted, sick love affair with secret keeping that got them into this mess, and Dean knows _exactly_ where he should be right now, and it's not in this goddamn living room watching his Dad spray paint his manpain out on the ugly-ass carpet.

"Just- leave it, Dad." He sighs, rubbing his forehead against the pounding taking up place behind his eyes. "I'll take care of—"

He breaks off with a wince, remembering his harsh, bitter echoing of the words, his sharp, mocking hit of the double entendre when Dad had told him about Sam's fucking blood in the first place.

Take care of Sammy.

God, and who's gonna fucking take care of the kid now? Who's gonna put him back together after he and Dad and fucking Yellow Eyes have done such a good goddamn job of taking him apart?

"_Look after_ Sammy," he corrects deliberately. "I'll look after Sammy."

John nods, finishes his devil's trap on the floor only to drag a fat, moth-eaten ottoman over so that he can step up onto it and start spraying another devil's trap on the ceiling over the door.

And Dean doesn't know why he's surprised, why he's caught off guard _at all_ by the fact that John's dealing with this whole mess by diving deeper into the hunt, just burying it and hoping at all sorts itself out while he's spray painting or interrogating or searching up another fucking abandoned cabin in the woods to demon-proof, but if all he's got to give here is spray painting arcane symbols on moldy drywall, then clearly Dean's better off in the kitchen, trying and failing to convince Sam to look at him as anything other than the secret keeping spawn of fucking Satan.

As he turns to go, spins on his heel to head to the kitchen and see which goes over worse with Sam: eating or acknowledging Dean's existence, he feels the long, hard barrel of the Colt in his pocket, remembers that there's one Winchester secret that wasn't Yellow Eyes' to spill.

It's tempting.

It's tempting to whip the thing right out, to spin it on his finger and joke that at least this whole "No Secrets" thing wasn't a total bust, but that would just lead to more questions, to more questions and more fighting and Sammy getting dragged back into it on the heels of all this crap, and they don't need that.

Sammy doesn't need that.

And Dean knows, knows that it's this line of thinking that got him kicked right past the doghouse and to the curb with Sammy in the first place, but this is Dad.

This is Dad who never once apologized to Sammy for what he did, who never once said he regretted the lies, the secrets, even after Yellow Eyes copped to Sammy being psychic but not evil, number one seed in the demon draft but not at all batting for the black-eyed team, just like Dean said from the get-go.

Dad who, instead of goin' in there and giving Sammy a manly clap on the fucking shoulder so they can at least _pretend_ everything's alright, has moved on to spray painting devil's traps over the fucking _electrical sockets_ and _air vents_.

Fuck this.

Fuck this, and fuck Dad.

Dad can know about the goddamn Colt when he goddamn needs to. Dean's got a brother to look after, and it's gonna be a cold hard bitch findin' anything in this dump Sammy'd eat without a fight on a _good_ day, much less one where he's had his whole fucking world view blown up and inside out in the space of an hour.


	38. Chapter 38

Dean strides into the kitchen and starts banging through cabinets, looking for the least E. coli ridden can to crack open in the never-ending struggle to get Sam to fucking eat.

"What'd Dad say?" Sam mumbles as Dean's squinting between Option A, rusty but identifiable, and Option B, of questionable origin but definitely of a more recent vintage.

Dean's head jerks around, surprised Sam's said anything to him at all, but his brother's still at the kitchen table, still in the same pose he's been in since he got into the damn cabin, shoulders hunched, head braced in his hands, lines of tension tight, radiating through every inch of his body.

But Sam talked to him. Said something. Something not "I hate you for lying and never wanna see you again."

It's not forgiveness. Not by a long shot.

But it's something.

"Same old, same old." Dean shrugs, trying and failing for casual as he digs through the squeaky, sticky drawers for a can opener. "Salt everything all to hell and don't take candy from strangers with black eyes."

"'Take care of Sammy,' huh?" Sam laughs bleakly, not looking up.

He hits the irony in the phrase perfectly, makes sure Dean knows exactly which side of the coin he means when it comes to that goddamn banner, and god, if Dean thought it was bad before, Sam twisting that old order on its head, twisting it just like Dean had twisted it when he found out…

"Well, someone's gotta take care of you," he jokes through the pain, turning to dump the soup (at least, he's pretty sure it's soup) in a battered saucepan and crank the heat on the old range, more than a little surprised when it sparks to life on the first try.

Of all the things to work out today…

"Let's face it, Sammy," he continues lightly, rooting around in the cabinets for something to put the stuff in. "You're in your twenties and still convinced protein bars are a food group?"

Dean seizes a chipped Elvis coffee mug from the dark, dusty corner of the cupboard over the sink.

"Not like it's much better when you _do_ eat," he muses aloud. "Seriously, dude. Last time we got Mexican, I wasn't sure whether I should apologize to everybody in the restaurant or walk in front of you with one of those bells they made the lemurs carry around back in the day."

Sam doesn't correct him, doesn't pipe up with an annoyed, exasperated "It's _lepers_, Dean," but Dean thinks he hears him swallow half of a sad, watery chuckle, so he'll take it.

"Plus, there's the hair," he continues. "Hate to be the one to tell you this, Sammy, but the floppy bowl cut look? It doesn't really work on anyone over the age of nine."

He dumps half the bubbling soup in the mug then jerks open a cabinet to try and hunt down something other than a fork for Sam to eat this stuff with.

"Yahtzee," he crows, snagging the cabin's only spoon from between a pack of matches and a Ziploc full of twisty ties and running it under the faucet in deference to Sammy's ladylike sensibilities before offering him the mug and spoon. "Here. I got soup."

"Arsenic?" Sam guesses morbidly, not looking up from the table.

"Vegetable," Dean shrugs, setting the mug down in front of him and dragging a chair over to plop down next to his brother, "but the label was kinda peely, so really your guess is as good as mine."

"M'not hungry," Sam mutters, not looking up but not telling Dean to fuck off, either.

"Come on, Sammy. Eat up," Dean presses, nudging the soup forward. "You skipped lunch and hurled up dinner."

"Can't," Sam says into his hands.

"Yeah, you can. Past the lips, over the gums, you know the drill," Dean insists, hating that he hesitates before reaching out to try and tug Sam's hands away from his face.

"You heard him, Dean," Sam explodes the second Dean lays a finger on him, throwing his hands off with sudden, violent energy. "You know what I saw! That in there? The _thing_ we're trying to summon? That's what I've got to look forward to. That's what I'm gonna _becom_e when they're finished with me!"

"No, you're not," Dean grinds out, forceful and determined, determined like he's never been in his life, because there is no way, _no way_ Yellow Eyes gets his way on this one. No way Sammy's goin' that route, bad blood or no.

"I saw it, Dean!" Sam laughs, and it's bleak and bitter and just a little unhinged. "I saw it, so it has to happen!"

"No, it doesn't," Dean snaps. "You saw Max plug me in the head. I'm still breathin', aren't I?"

"That was one guy," Sam scoffs, sad and hopeless. "This is—"

"This is just one more," Dean interrupts. "We got the Colt, we got his demon-bitch lackey's number. We dial her up, get the bastards name, plug him, go home happy. No demon, no destiny, no psychic Legion of Doom."

"And what if someone else just comes to take his place?" Sam helpless and watery and Dean hates seeing him like this, _hates_ it.

"They won't," Dean growls. "We ice Yellow Eyes, that'll be the end of it."

"You don't know that, Dean!" Sam cries. "You don't know what I am! What I could _become_—"

"How many times've I risked my life for you, Sammy?" Dean interrupts, softly fiercely. "Taken the bullet, swallowed the hit? More'n I can count, right? I'd do it again, too. You believe that.

At Sam's sad, watery sort, Dean gets a hand over his pulse, makes him looks up, Sam's bleak, red-rimmed hazel eyes meeting his.

"_Believe it_," he forces out, hard and unwavering, rising to kneel in front of Sam on the cold, cracked linoleum. "Not 'cause Dad told me to or 'cause it was the right thing or 'cause I had to. I do it 'cause you're my brother. You're all I got, Sammy."

He slips his other hand up, carding it through Sam's wrecked, tangled curls.

"And no matter what they did to you," he continues. "No matter what they're planning for you—"

He swallows hard, swallows hard against demon armies and psychic generals, against so much more than ghosts and ghouls and grandma rattlin' pipes in the attic, because he's a goddamn hunter.

He's a goddamn hunter, and Sammy is leaning into him, turned in the kitchen chair like a compass towards true north, and the shake is bleeding out of him, little by little, and he might not be smiling but he's _listening_.

"No matter what it is running through your veins," Dean swears, catching Sam's eye and holding it, "my blood or theirs or fucking _chocolate pudding_, you're _you_."

And he can't help it, can't stand this fucking _distance_ between them any longer, uses his grip in Sam's hair to tug him down and bump their foreheads together as his brother's stupid, floppy girl bangs tangle in his eyes and tickle his nose.

"You're you. You're you, and you're worth protecting. You're worth saving," he promises as Sam, ever the fucking girl, slides off his chair and to the floor, gangly-ass limbs going everywhere as he tosses his arms around Dean's shoulders and buries his face in Dean's collar and just fucking _clings_. And it might be girly, might be _girly_ and _weepy_ and the death of his goddamn Man Card, but Dean fucking needs this, and he fucking clings _back_.

After earlier, after _everything_, he can't _not_, can't do anything but give in to the fierce, desperate need to feel _home_ and _warmth_ and _brother_ shoved around and against him, to drown out anything and everything with Sammy, _here_ and _his_ and holding on just as hard as Dean is, sniffling and shaking and Sammy, _his Sammy_, though and through, all arms and elbows and stupid, curling hair everywhere and demon blood or no, dark goddamn destiny or no, Sam is _his_, and nothing, fucking _nothing_, is going to change that.

"You can't save me from this, Dean," Sam whispers into the flannel of Dean's collar after the shaking stops, after the clinging and shivering and sniffling stop, after the world starts to creep back in on them, makes itself known in aching knees and cold linoleum and the hollow, metallic shake of Dad and his spray paints in the next room,

"Watch me." Dean snorts, sitting back on his heels and giving Sam a hand up.

"Dean—" Sam protests, but Dean's right there, cutting him off.

"No. I'm not just gonna give up on you, Sammy!" he refuses. "Not when we don't even know what the hell having this crap in you means in the first place!"

"I could be a monster, Dean," Sam insists, and Dean hates it, hates to hear Sam echo the filthy, impossible crap Dad had thrown at him when this shit first came up. "I could _become_ a monster."

"Yeah, well that's what you got me for." Dean shrugs, passing the cold soup to Sam with a meaningful look at the mug. "You start liking good music or being able to put down more'n two beers without goin' all pink and stupid, I'll know something's up."

He follows Sam to lean against the kitchen counter

"Even then," Dean continues, "you might be a psychic pain in the ass, but you're _my_ psychic pain in the ass. Anything comes at you, it's gotta go through me first."

"What if it's Dad?" Sam ventures, stirring the soup without looking up.

"It won't be." Dean grits out.

"It might!" Sam protests, slamming the mug down on the countertop, "You saw him Dean, you heard the Demon! He doesn't think- Doesn't believe I'm-"

_Human._

The word hangs between them, heavy and unspoken, not needing to be said to be understood, to blacken the room like a storm cloud.

"Well, the man's been a few cards short of a full deck for a few years now," Dean dismisses with a light shrug. "Not surprised he's finally let his, let's be honest here, _rampant_ paranoia get the best of him. Next he'll be having us truck out after the Chrichton Leprechaun or some shit while he A Beautiful Mind's the comics, trying to see demonic master plans in fucking _Marmaduke_."

"That's not funny," Sam tries to hide a weak grin by picking up the soup and taking sip, wincing as he gets a mouthful of soggy, congealed vegetables instead of… whatever the fuck it was he was expecting. "And this is _disgusting_."

"Come on," Dean shrugs, "it's a little funny. And it's only disgusting 'cause you let it get cold."

"No, it's disgusting 'cause it's from 1987, dude," Sam laughs, reading the can on the countertop. "You know I was kidding about you trying to off me, right?"

"Bullshit, gimme that," Dean demands, grabbing for the can only for Sam to snatch it away with his damn gorilla arms.

"What, you don't trust me?" Sam teases. "Chocolate pudding, huh?"

"Clearly I spoke too fucking soon," Dean grins, making another snatch for the can. "Why don't you use those psychic powers of yours, Miss Cleo? Order us up a goddamn pizza?"

"Boys, get in here!" John snaps from the living room, and suddenly all teasing is finished as their heads both snap to the doorway. "S'time we get this show on the road."

When they walk in and Dean sees the black bowl of sulfur at their Dad's feet, the bone-white summoning sigil traced out in chalk in the center of the devil's trap at the middle of the room, blood red candles dotting its arms and a knife made of pure iron at the ready, it hits him just what they're gonna do in a few minutes.

"Help me get it tied up," Dad orders, unknotting a skein of rope as he jerks his chin to the body bag on the couch. "We gotta lot to do and no time to do it."

"Thank god we got one with clothes still on," Sam mutters as he and Dean heft the body out of the bag and into the chair John's centered in front of the sigil.

"Not lookin' to share a shirt with black-eyed Barbie, Sammy?" Dean smirks up at his brother, grateful for the distraction as he tries to ignore the limp, insensible twitches of the cold body under his hands as his Dad ties it to the chair, the way this lady's still wearin' a Wartburg High Bulldogs pin on her button-down, crisp white from the waist up but the rough, rusty red-brown of old blood from the waist down, soaking and stiffening the fabric of her skirt, which must have been floaty and girly once upon a time but is now wrecked and ripped through, shreds of grass and grease still clinging to the folds their Dad bats aside to double check the knots at her ankles.

"That should do it." He nods, giving the dead girl's hands a sharp jerk, one after the other, to make sure they're tied to the arms of the chair securely.

"Stand back," he orders Sam and Dean, readying a handful of herbs in front of the bowl, running his fingers over the knife, the box of matches on the side table in arm's reach, shooting a glance at the open duffle in the corner, the one Dean can see from where he's standin' is stocked with holy water. Salt. Other things.

Sharper things.

Things Dean really doesn't want to think of his Dad using on soft, civilian bodies.

Things that, even on a hunt, start to blur the line between 'monster' and 'man'.

And then Dad's lighting the candles, tossing the herbs in the bowl and starting up a low, steady chant in Latin that Sammy can probably make out plain as day, but Dean has trouble making heads or tails of.

He hears Meg's name though, her real name, sticking out like a sore thumb in a patch of twisting, sibilant syllables, and the next part, the part he's picked up from Sammy's bitching that if they're on the hunt for demons they should at least be able to exorcize demons so put down Auto Trader and fucking _study_, Dean!

The words for command. For summoning. For binding. For mastery.

"…_Ad constringendum, ad ligandum eos pariter et solvendum_," his Dad murmurs, low and angry and intent, drawing a quick, sharp slice across his palm with the knife and holding his hand over the bowl of sick, sulfuric yellow sand, letting the blood drip down, mingle with the pungent, putrid powder. "_Et ad congregandum eos coram me_."

John lights a match with one quick, practiced stroke, pausing just a moment before he lets it fall and hit the blood and herbs and sulfur in front of the dead girl with a shower of sparks, a sudden rush of heat and light that gusts through the room, sends the lights flickering and the candles guttering, and it's darkness, nothing but darkness in the silent, shuttered cabin for one long moment before Sam has the presence of mind to shove a hand in Dean's pocket, to fish out his lighter and spark it to life and catch, almost instantly, on the eyes blinking up at them from the chair in the center of the room, swallowing the light and spitting it back at them.

The black, pupil-less eyes.

"Miss me, boys?"


	39. Chapter 39

She was pretty, whoever this girl was, all night-black hair and dark, tilted eyes, her wide, full mouth a pale, pert pink against olive skin.

She'd have been alive and Dean'd been in the sociable mood, he'd have flirted a little, maybe made a play for her number. Maybe a little more if she was up for it, because hey, you're only young once and he was here and she was pretty.

Whoever she was, even dead, she was prettier before.

Before she had Meg's sharp, seething black eyes staring out of her smooth, oval face. Before she had Meg's cruel, twisted smirk curling those pale, pink petal lips, and Meg's cocky confidence tossing the head that had been limp, insensible seconds before and shaking aside locks of tousled, tangled black hair to look up at them, the same snarling, superior snark twisting the features of a new face now, the column of black smoke they called with a name and a brand twisting the body in the chair from a soft, sad dead girl to something sharp, something sinister.

Something _evil_.

"Salome," John growls as the lights come back on, as whatever rush of – _evil_, _magic_, Dean's not sure _what_ to call it - that brought her here dies, dissipates in the stale, still air of the cabin.

"Been a long time since I've been called that, John Boy," she hums, quirking an eyebrow.

Dean's hit on a lot of girls in his lifetime, watched a lot of babes play at disinterested as you drop a tidbit, a lie or a line or a compliment, that they don't want you to know is what's finally got 'em hooked. He sees that in Meg now, sees that same casual, studied disinterest scroll across her face plain as day as she watches their dad in the weak light.

"You must have dug deep in the vaults for that one, Johnny."

She tilts her head back, eyes sharp and calculating as she runs through the possibilities, and even here, even tied and trapped with no way for Yellow Eyes to tag in and save her, she's still so fucking smug and smiling, so cat with the fucking canary that Dean wants to punch her, wants Sammy to rattle off the words that'll send her ass straight back to hell, even if they would have to call her right back up for Yellow Eyes' goddamn name.

"Who ya been talkin' to, boys?" And the words are light, spoken with all the sweet, conversational tease that Dean knows means she's gonna hunt down whoever gave them her real name and show them the meaning of pain.

"The girl you killed," Dad growls, pulling the flask of holy water from the duffle.

"Killed a lot of girls," Meg purrs with a sly, smug smile, narrowing her eyes and leaning forward as far as the ropes allow. "You're gonna have to narrow it down a bit for me."

"Meg," Sam bites out. "The _real_ Meg."

"Blondie?" Meg asks, grin cracking with a little laugh. "She was still alive in there? Well, I'll be damned. I mean, _obviously_."

She smirks, eyes flicking black for just a heartbeat before she lets them sink back to stolen honey brown.

"So, you got a chance to chat with Andover Meg," she picks up again conversationally. "Was she as annoying with you as she was with me? Because lemme tell you, eight months of '_No, don't_!' and '_Let me out!'_ and '_Please, somebody help me!'?_It gets _old_."

She rolls her eyes and Dean just wants to _smack_ her.

"Honestly?" She leans forward, her bonds straining. "I'm kinda glad you two chuckleheads tossed me off that building. Finally got her to shut the hell up."

"She was choking on her own blood," Sam growls.

"Still got your name out, though," Dean takes over, crossing in front of his brother. "You can thank her for the new digs, by the way."

"Schoolteacher," Meg muses, eyes going distant, a little unfocused as she feels out the body she's riding. "Twenty…. six? Had a thing for cats. I've been in worse. Hell, I've _been_ worse.

"That's right," John breaks in, and Dean's not sure he's ever heard that sharp, cold, taunting edge in his Dad's voice before.

Not sure he ever wanted to hear it, to know the man who raised him, who taught him how to throw a ball and spot a bluff and tune the Impala so she purrs, is capable of sounding that cold, that hard, that close to the things they hunt.

"We got ourselves a celebrity in the hot seat. _Salome_," Dad says, rolling the name on his tongue like he's tasting it, testing it's feel.

It's _foreign_ and _strange_, and not the man Dean knew, not the father who raised him, not at all, and if he didn't just see him with the salt and holy water, if he didn't see him cross and re-cross the lines of a devil's trap just a minute ago, Dean'd swear _Dad_ was the one possessed.

"You've been kissin' Yellow Eyes' ass a long time, sweetheart," Dad taunts, leaning in with a cold, cruel smirk.

"You watch your tone, John Boy," Meg snaps, voice hard and stolen eyes narrow. "That's my daddy you're talkin' about."

"Demons don't have daughters," John dismisses.

"What?" Meg scoffs. "Like your kind're the only ones who are allowed _family_? Loyalty? Respect? He _saved_ me!"

"From what?" Dean demands.

"Death," Meg bites out. "Wiped away the 'forever and ever, Amen' and showed me a whole new world. Don't tell me you don't know the story, Dean-o?"

She sniffs, raising a slim, scornful eyebrow that doesn't belong to her.

"Well, it's not like I'm surprised," she says. "You're definitely the most well-read of the family. Care to tell him, Sammy?"

"It's the Bible," Sam explains, not takin' his eyes off Meg. "New Testament. Salome was the daughter of Herodias. One day her stepfather, Herod, was celebrating his birthday—"

"So she does the dance of the seven veils," Dean interrupts. "Stepdad's so turned on that he promises to give her whatever she wants. Her mom tells her to ask for the head of John the Baptist, so Herod gets it chopped off and gives it to Salome on a plate."

John and Sam turn to look at him with raised eyebrows.

"I saw the porno version," Dean explains with a shrug, ignoring Meg's sneer. "Move on to the dying part."

"Well, _that's_ not in the Bible," Sam says. "There _is_ a letter in the Apocrypha that talks about it…"

"Right," John picks up. "It was a freak accident. The girl was playing on some ice, but it broke and she fell through. Sliced her head clean off, right in front of her mother."

Sam nods.

"Yeah," he says, "but most people write that off as fiction thought up by the early church. History tells us she actually lived a lot longer than that."

"So what?" Dean demands, glaring at Meg. "You make a deal? Big Daddy Demon gives you a new lease on life, and when you clock out, he makes your brown eyes black?"

"You can't deal when you're dead, dumbass," Meg scoffs. "Even a bush league shmuck like you should be able to figure that out. Once you're benched, you've got nothing to bargain with."

"It was your mother," Sam realizes faintly.

"Mommy dearest," Meg smiles. "Promising my demonic daddy the world if only she could have her baby breathing again."

"So she made a deal to bring you back," Sam finishes.

"And I bet you know what comes next, Sammy," Meg grins up at Sam. "A quick meet up with Daddy later, and it was all set just which team I was batting for."

"Mothers dealing for children," John mutters, floored.

"It's a tale as old as time, John Boy," Meg smirks, shark's grin spreading across her stolen face. "After all, how'd you think Daddy Dearest got in to see little Sammy here? The doggy door?"

"No," Dad cuts her off, sharp, sure.

"No, that can't be true," Sam shakes his head, refuses to accept it. Refuses, because he's a smart fucking kid and this bitch is _lying_, has to be lying.

"Say it all you want, boys." Meg smirks. "But all those years ago? When Mommy got flambéed? No one was in that house that wasn't invited."

"No," Dean refuses, because it can't, it _can't_- Mom- _his Mom_- she didn't- she would never have-

"You're _lying_," Sam insists, voice rough through gritted teeth, hand on Dean's arm, and he's right, because his Mom, _their_ Mom, she _loved_ Sam. She would have _never_-

"You know I'm not," Meg purrs, that damn smug smile on her face, that one Dean just wants to tear off, to _carve_ off, and he understands Dad's fury from earlier now, his cold, hard, sharp voice because these bastards, these goddamn black-eyed sons of bitches, they-

"Dean, get Sam outta here," John orders, voice low. "You're not gonna wanna see what comes next."

And Dad's snatching up salt and iron with intent on his face, with all the malice and hatred Dean feels echoing through him, swallowing the hurt and disbelief and pain and god, _god_ does he want to stay, does he want to help Dad cut into this bitch, to cut the answers, the _truth_, right outta her, but Sammy's got a fist in his jacket sleeve, tight and knotted as he glares at Meg, as his mouth twists and his eyes narrow, that shake, that tension sneaking back into his limbs.

"Come on, Sammy," Dean forces out numbly, backing toward the kitchen, trying to tug Sammy along with him, but Sam throws him off, drops Dean's jacket to start forward.

"I'm not leaving," he snarls, tearing to the edge of the devil's trap to loom over Meg, to glare down and her and demand, "What do you know about our mom?"

"Dean!" Dad snaps, eyes going from Sam's toes at the edge of the trap to the long, tense line of Sam's neck, clean and unbroken by the cord of his anti-possession charm and that smug, cat-with-the-canary smirk on Meg's face, that barest hint of a grin as she leans forward, strains toward the edge of her chair, tries to meet the furious hulk of Dean's baby brother instead of cringing away-

"What the hell did you do to me?!" Sam roars, eyes dark, fury filling the room.

"Sam! Sam, come on!" Dean shouts, darting to his brother, grabbing his arm, trying to drag him away from the trap on the floor, from the thin, spray painted line between him and oblivion, "_Sam!_"

"No, Dean! I-" Sam protests, thrashes against him as Dean hauls him back by sheer force of will, tangles around him and crowds against him as they both crash against the faded, cracked, dented kitchen drywall in a furious, fraying heap.

"Breathe," Dean coaches as Sam pants against him in a hard, angry, too-fast rush. "You're not gonna get anything out of her like this. None of us are gonna get anything outta her like this."

And he doesn't know who he's talkin' to, whether he's saying this for himself or Sam, but it's true, it's so true. They gotta fucking calm down. Gotta get their heads on straight, 'cause Sammy almost lost it back there, almost walked right into-

God, if he'd have-

They've gotta fucking calm down.

"Seems like Dad's gonna try," Sam mumbles faintly against his collar bone, and Dean can hear it now over the panting of Sammy's breath and the pounding of his own heart.

He can hear the sounds of torture coming from the next room.

The hiss and sting of holy water. John's hoarse, fierce demands. Meg's taunting, triumphant laughter, screams rising and spiking and fading to rough, rasping giggles.

"Come on, John. That all you got?" Meg taunts with hoarse, hacking laughter. "Think of _Mary_. Think of just whose soul she bargained away all those years ago. Think of whose fault this all _really_ is!"

More screams. The spitting, steaming hiss of holy water mixing with a darker, more mundane sizzle.

"You don't have her," they can hear Dad growl. "She was in Lawrence! You never had her!"

"Maybe not," Meg rasps, wrecked, thready, triumphant, "but guess who we're _gonna_ have."

And Sam is shaking in Dean's arms, ready to fall apart to the sounds of their father carving answers out of the monster that just gave confirmation to all of his worst fears.


	40. Chapter 40

Dean's prepared for another panic attack, has already got his hand rubbing circles on Sam's back, mouth open to let out a familiar string of "Breathe, just breathe, Sammy, c'mon," when Sam raises his head and Dean realizes abruptly that his brother isn't scared.

He's _pissed_.

Sam disentangles himself from Dean's arms and stomps out of the cabin, Dean dogging his heels like friggin' hellfire. Dean watches, eyes wide, as Sam yanks the cover on Dad's truck bed up and climbs into the back. The truck rocks and creaks under his weight as he crouches down and begins shifting things around.

"Dude, what are you doing?" Dean asks.

Sam laughs, the sound high and hysterical.

"What do you think I'm doing? I've got to find out what else he's been hiding, right?"

He hefts a box of Dad's research up onto the side of the truck bed and starts digging through it.

"Sam," Dean starts.

"He knew what I am, Dean!" Sam explodes. "He knew what they did to me! So what else isn't he telling us?! Did he know about _Mom_—"

He chokes on the word, voice breaking.

"Mom didn't do anything," Dean insists. "That bitch is lying, Sam! That's what demon's _do__!_"

"Don't," Sam cuts him off. "Just _don't_. Because from where I'm standing, the _only _people who've told me the truth today were goddamn demons."

He stuffs the papers in his hand back into the box and climbs down out of the trunk.

"Just help me get these into the Impala," he says without looking at Dean.

"What? Why?" Dean demands, almost staggering under the weight of the research-packed crate Sam practically flings into his arms.

"Because I need some goddamn answers, Dean!" Sam spits out, snatching open the back seat of the Impala and stuffing the research inside before striding back to the truck bed and loading up again. "Jesus Christ! First I'm some sort of demon general, and now I've got no fucking soul?!"

"Sam, she's talkin' outta her ass. She's gotta be," Dean tries to reassure his brother, setting his own crate down in the floorboards as Sam feverishly loads up with another box.

"Yeah, 'cause none of us has ever run across lore about baby bartering before!" Sam spits out half-hysterically as he hefts out the last of Dad's research stash. "'Cause there's not a single story out there about monsters dealing with mothers for kids that haven't even been born yet! It's not unheard of Dean! Some dumbass wants money or power or a fucking _salad_ enough to offer a kid up for it—"

"Not Mom!" Dean interrupts, letting his box crash to the ground because _no_, no matter what, _no,_ just _no._ "She'd never do that!"

"She apologized, Dean." Sam shakes his head, angry and anguished and agonized and Dean can see, can see the pain from all those months ago welling up, taking over the fury washing through his little brother. "When we saw her in Lawrence, she said she was sorry, right before she took on that poltergeist. Why? Why else would she do that?"

"Sammy, she took on that thing to save you." Dean shakes his head, refusing, just _refusing_, because it's not true, it's not _possible_. "She burned herself up to save your life. To save us. I don't care what Meg says. Black-eyed bitch has gotta be lyin'. No way Mom'd do that to you. No way."

"Dean, come on," Sam shakes his head, the same ragged, lost look in his eyes, like he's losing- losing _everything_.

Everything he ever knew was true, everything he ever thought was real, everything he ever thought he had, everything all at once, and this, this look right here? This is why Dean didn't want Sam to know about the demon blood, about Yellow Eyes and his Big Damn Plan, but now he knows.

He knows, and it's worse, so much worse than any of them thought, and now Sam is looking at him like _Dean's_ the lost one, like he's the one who hasn't quite figured out that there's no Santa Claus, who still has to learn that monsters are real.

"What?" Dean demands, hating that broken, pitying look in Sam's eyes, hating what he's almost positive it means, because no, just _no_, dammit. "Spit it out, Sam."

"You were four," Sam starts, and that's as fucking far as Dean lets him get.

"Yeah, I was." He nods defiantly. "Four years old, and you and Mom were my whole goddamn world."

And he wishes he could share it with Sam, that warm, safe feeling he remembers from Lawrence, that he's kept covered and close all these goddamn years, everything from before fires and demons and nights in the back of the car, trying to keep Sammy from crying while Dad drove and drove and drove, trying to outrun everything that they could never shake, everything that would always, always be following them. Those precious memories of life before the fire give him all the confidence he needs that what he's telling Sam right now is the truth, and he hopes that's enough because he has to get Sam to understand, to fucking _remember_, even if there's no possible way he can.

"I saw how she looked at you, Sam," he says, his voice choked with emotion. "I saw how she looked at you and how she held you and played with you and sang you to sleep when you cried at night."

And he has to swallow hard against the memories, against the sharp, awful ache of warm arms and gentle smiles, of apple pie straight from the oven and remembering what it was like to wake up at night to a soft, steady voice singing 'Hey Jude' to scare away the shadows.

There's no way. There's just no goddamn way.

"I don't care what that soulless bitch in there says," Dean growls. "I don't care what she thinks happened all those years ago. I know my mom. I know my mom, and I know she would never, _ever_ do that to you."

Sam meets his eyes, and Dean can see how much he wants to believe him, hates that Sammy doesn't even have Dean's fuzzy, four-year-old memories to fall back on, hates that Yellow Eyes and his goddamn plans burned Mom away from him and Sam, and now this.

God, what did they ever do to deserve this?

"I wish I could believe that, Dean," Sam forces out, tightly, furiously swiping at his eyes as he slams the door of the Impala and strides past Dean back to the cabin.

_Me too, _Dean thinks to himself as he trudges back in his brother's footsteps, and it all sucks, it all weighs on him, makes his steps heavy and his chest ache as he matches Sam's furious, determined pace back inside.

Sammy's powers, Yellow Eyes' plans, Dad's secrets… and Mom's, whatever they are.

And not for the first time, Dean just wants to ditch it all, to dead-leg Sam and drag him into the Impala and drive until they run out of fucking road, until they can outrun all of this shit, but he's seen how that works. Seen how hitting the road and running and chasing pans out as an answer to your life turning to shit.

It's not an answer. It's not gonna end this, and it's not gonna do a damn thing to help Sammy.

So Dean sighs. Buckles down and sets his shoulders and follows his brother back into their devil's trapped den of lies and damnation.

Because he has to.

Because it's his job.

And because hell if he's gonna let Sammy face this thing alone.


	41. Chapter 41

"Have a nice fucking walk?" John snaps, wiping holy water off his hands as they stride back into the cabin.

"What do you know?" Sam demands the second he catches sight of Meg, striding towards the devil's trap and only barely checking his momentum when he draws close to the edge of the paint.

"Oh, I know all sorts of things, Sammy," Meg purrs, her voice wrecked, a trickle of blood spilling out of her mouth. "You wanna know what's gonna happen when we finally come for what's ours? Wanna know what it feels like when they claw you from your meatsuit? When you get dragged to the deepest depths of the pit? Wanna know what Mommy set you up for all those years ago?"

"Why'd she do it?" Sam roars, snatching up a bottle of holy water from the floor and spiking it at her, sending a wild, furious spray across the trap, across the demon in the girl bound to the chair, sending her arching and smoking in her stolen skin, and Dean's eyes dart to the white lines keeping Meg stuck, to the empty, amulet-less stretch of Sam's neck and his heart ratchets up, remembers Yellow Eyes destroying their last trap with a blink, remembers how close, _just how close_ Sam got to crossing that line earlier. "What the hell am I gonna become?!"

"Sammy, back," he reminds, trying and failing to nudge Sam further from that damn white line, to get him a safe distance away from the black eyed bitch on the market for a new meatsuit.

"No, Dean!" Sam throws off Dean's hold and surges right back into the danger zone like a moth to the flame, like he can't physically bear to be anywhere less than right in front of her, right where he's at the most risk. "Not until she tells me what the hell I need to know."

"Come on, Dean-o, let us talk." Meg rasps, cruel, teasing smirk on her face. "Demon to demon."

"Is that what I am!?" Sam thunders, rage welling, rising, filling the room, and it's got Dean's back up and his hair on end, a dangerous, foreboding twist in his stomach. "Is that what I'm gonna become? _IS IT!?_"

"Sam!" Dean warns, at his brother's elbow whether he wants him there or not, just waiting to drag him back across the line, ready to pull him back from where this black bitch is trying to trick him.

"You need to calm down right the hell now!" John barks from Sam's other side, moving with Dean to push him back from the trap's edge.

"No," Sam protests, struggling against them, his eyes flicking to Dean in an instant, black fury falling back for an instant to determination, to desperation, to the paper-thin film of anger holding back all the fear and hopelessness threatening to swallow his little brother whole. "Dean, she—"

"Amulet!" Dean reminds harshly, jerking at Sam's shirt collar to expose the bare, anti-possession charm-less stretch of skin.

"Sam, you cross that line—" John gravels, but Sam just rolls his eyes at their father's voice, his lip curling.

"What? She _possesses_ me? What the fuck does it matter?!" he demands, flinging his arms wide. "Afraid they're gonna get me a few years ahead of schedule, Dad? If I'm damned anyway—"

"Don't you fucking talk like that!" Dean snaps, shoving Sam to face him.

"Why not?" Sam spits out, harsh, bitter laugh shaking his frame. "It's the truth!"

"No, it's not!" Dean shouts. "How many times do I gotta tell you she's full of shit?!"

"Boys!" John thunders, his eyes not on Sam and Dean but on Meg writhing in the devil's trap, her mouth moving as her body tenses in a sharp, rigid rictus of pain. "Shut the fuck up!"

"_Exorcizamus te_," she forces out between gritted teeth, and it sounds like- like she's- she _couldn't_- "_Omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas_…"

"What the fuck...?" Dean gets out, but then the light goes off in his head just as it hits Dad and Sam.

"Stop her!" John barks, and Dean's scrambling for the duct tape he can see stuffed Dad's duffle, already inscribed with a devil's trap, but then he hears Sam's voice, sharp and exact, breaking over Meg's.

"_Diabolica secta et congretio omnis_," Sam recites exactingly, brow furrowed and eyes squeezed shut. "_Legio omnis, adversarii infernalis, incursio omnis_..."

It's the fucking exorcism. It's the fucking exorcism, and he's saying it _backwards_.

If this works and if Dean weren't on high hunting alert and trying to keep their best lead on Sam's powers, on the thing that killed their Mom and Jess, from exorcising herself right through their fucking fingers, he could fucking _kiss_ Sam.

And goddammit, the kid is good, because Meg is going from looking pained but smug to pained and _pissed_.

"_Omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica…_" she grits out, double-time and as loud as her ruined, wrecked voice can manage, and Dean can see the rage in her eyes, the hatred.

She's got a lead on Sammy, got years and anger and the powers of hell racing through her filthy black blood, and Sammy is struggling, trying to flip the words in his head as he keeps them coming and god, Dean hopes- _hopes_—

"_…Te rogamus, audi nos!_" Meg snarls with a sharp, bitter smirk of triumph.

Black smoke explodes from her mouth, rushes out and up and straight for Sam in a filthy, sooty tornado, streaming and screaming and straight for his little brother, and it's beyond instinct, it's like Dean's fingers have a mind of their own and before he knows what's happening, before his mind can fully process what's going on, the Colt is in his hand and there's the sharp, deafening crack of a gunshot as the smoke seizes, contracts, is wracked by a sudden, searing rictus of fire and lightning churning just beneath the surface of the sooty, churning black funnel as it spins, weakens, is sucked away by whatever forces drag black-eyed bitches back to hell when you say the magic words.

"Dean…" Sam whispers faintly, stunned as he stares at the fresh bullet hole in the scarred drywall, the Colt still smoking in Dean's grip.

"What the hell is that?" John demands, eyes black with fury and riveted on the gun in Dean's hand.


	42. Chapter 42

There's a long, limping moment of dense silence.

Sam looks from the Colt clutched in his brother's white-knuckled grip to their father's apoplectic face and tries frantically to remember what, if there was ever anything, he had planned to say when the time came to explain – to _justify_ – this.

"Tell me," John grinds out, voice low and quavering raw like he's been gargling glass, "_tell me_ that's not Samuel Colt's gun. Tell me you wouldn't keep that from me. That you didn't have the gun, _the demon-killing gun_, and Yellow Eyes right in front of you and— God, tell me you're not that fucking _stupid!_"

Dean is a stone, silent and pale in the face of their father's rage. Sam moves on shaking legs away from the slumped, lifeless corpse that only seconds ago held Meg to stand by his brother's side.

"How long?" John demands. "How long have you two been jerking me around, huh?"

"Colorado," Sam tells him, trying to shoulder his way in front of Dean only to have his brother's palm press solidly against his chest, holding him back. "Just since Colorado."

John's eyes dart over Dean's shoulder to fix on Sam for the first time with an expression of dark intent that Sam has seen before, recognizes from when their dad was interrogating Meg, from when he faced off with the Yellow-Eyed Demon, but somehow, in spite of everything, never expected to see directed at him.

"You," John says lowly, and Dean's palm pushes _hard_ against Sam's chest, making him stumble backward. "What the hell did you do to Dan Elkins?"

Sam is too angry, too rubbed goddamn raw, to feel anything at that but pure outrage.

"I _talked_ to him," he spits. "That's it! Apparently that's more than _you_ could be bothered to do!"

"And then you _lied_ to me. You—!" John breaks off with a choking sound, jaw working. "I had the demon right in front of me. We had the goddamn gun! We could've ended it right there, and I didn't even _know_! That could've been our shot, our _only_ shot!"

"By the time you knew what she was, you were pinned to the wall, Dad!" Sam protests. "Even if you'd had the gun, it wouldn't have made a difference!"

"You don't know that!" John explodes. "Do you have any idea what you've done?! You—! God_dammit!_"

He sweeps an arm across the battered table on his right, sending his tools and weapons clattering to the ground with a crash. A bottle of Holy Water bursts open, soaking the leg of Sam's jeans.

John breathes ragged, eyes pinched shut, before he turns his attention back to Dean.

"What the hell were you thinking? I expect this shit from _him_, but _you?!_" he snarls, and Sam clamps down on another spike of outrage. "You _know_ better! I'm supposed to be able to trust you!"

Sam lets out a harsh bark of laughter.

"Right," he snaps viciously, "because you've given us every reason to trust _you_. Come on, Dad, do you really think Dean wouldn't have handed the gun over the second I showed up with it if he wasn't afraid you'd put a bullet in me just to test it out?!"

It's a wild swing, meant to wound more than to ring true, but Dean starts, muscles in his back jumping, fingers digging into Sam's shirt as he glances between them with wide eyes, and that's enough. More than enough for Sam to know that's exactly what his brother was afraid of in Colorado.

John's face is dark. His eyes dart down to the gun in Dean's hand like he's only just remembered that even though he's found the Colt, even though he's in the same room with it, he still doesn't actually _have_ it. He reaches a hand out for the gun only to have Dean jerk it abruptly out of his reach.

"Son," John says tightly, "give me the gun. Nobody's getting shot tonight."

He keeps his tone level, but Sam doesn't think he's imagining the touch of rage thrumming through his voice when he says that, and he has to believe that Dean's fears are misplaced, has to think that Dad's thinking about the demon right then, or Sam's going to lose it, just start screaming and never stop.

John reaches out again, and Dean steps backward, shoving Sam along with him.

"No, sir. Sorry," he says lightly, but his voice sounds strained and rusty, like he's been holding his tongue for days instead of minutes, "but Sam's the one who tracked it down. Far as I'm concerned, it's only fair for him to decide who gets it."

He turns to look at Sam with eyebrows raised.

"Sammy?" he prompts.

"You," Sam chokes out, glancing between them. "You keep it."

Dean nods and shoves the Colt into his jacket pocket.

"I'm not fucking around, Dean," John growls, practically shaking with frustration now. "Give me the goddamn gun."

Dean shakes his head firmly, his shoulders pushed back, chin up.

"No use now, right?" he says tightly, throwing his arms out wide. "Nothing to shoot, Dad! Demon's gone. Only got so many bullets left. You gonna waste them on cans out back, or is there something you're not telling us? _Again_."

"Oh, wasting bullets?" John scoffs. "We're talking about wasting bullets now?!"

He looks at bullet hole in the far wall significantly. Dean fixes him with an incredulous stare.

"What, I was just supposed to stand there and let her possess Sammy?!"

"We could have _exorcised_ Sam. We can't _make_ another one of those bullets," Dad says gruffly. "And if I'm remembering right, he wasn't exactly _objecting_ to the idea an hour ago."

"Yeah, well, that was a piss-poor plan then, and it's a piss-poor plan now," Dean snaps. "I'm not gonna let some black-eyed bitch take over Sammy so you can go after him with pliers and a hand drill!"

John's eyes narrow.

"You really think I'd do that to your little brother?" he demands.

Dean stares at him for a long moment like he's searching for something.

"Dad, I would give anything to believe that you wouldn't," he says in a low voice, "but right now? I just don't know."

Sam looks between them, and recognizing the hard set of John's jaw, the icy fury creeping into his expression, tugs at Dean's sleeve in warning.

"You think what you want," John says coldly. "Fact is, our best lead on that demon is gone. We've got _nothing_ now."

"We got the family, alive," Dean points out tersely.

"And we know it's got something to do with the mothers now," Sam adds fiercely.

Dean and Dad turn in unison to fix him with identical glares.

"No. It. Doesn't," John grinds out.

"How can you know that?" Sam demands.

"Because I _do_," Dad says, "and if you'd known your mother for a goddamn minute, so would you."

The words hit him like a punch, have him pulling back for a heartbeat on reflex before the hurt sparks into anger, fury, _rage_, because that's not- even when-

"Hey!" Dean warns, stepping between the two of them again. "Stop it."

"Why? It's the truth," John snaps. "Those bastards have got you two _right_ where they want you, and if you stopped riding your brother's dick for half a second maybe you'd be able to see that!"

Dean makes a disgruntled sound deep in his throat at that last bit, and Sam can feel his own face blanch, knows their dad didn't mean it like that, but still, it's too close, too much to not have that paranoid, irrational voice in in the back of Sam's head hissing_'He knows!'__._

"We have _nothing_," John repeats. "If you wanna blame someone for that, don't look at me, and don't you _dare_ look at your mother, 'cause this right now – all of this – is on _you_ and _you_." He points to them both in turn.

"Dad, that's bullshit and you know it," Dean growls, and Sam can see the rage rising behind his eyes, flames licking dangerously close to the surface. "We can track the demon because of Sam. We have the gun because of Sam!"

"Dean," John rumbles, and they both recognize it for the order it is: _Stand down_. There's a vein ticking in John's throat, his fists clenching tight at his side.

"No," Dean says, words tumbling out in an angry rush. "No, you don't get to shovel that crap on us. Not this time. Remind me, what exactly have _you_ given us lately? What the hell have you given us in _twenty goddamn years?!_"

John drives a fist into his face with enough suddenness and force to knock Dean off his feet.

It takes Sam all of half a second to run the gamut from shocked to mind-blowingly furious and about as much time to react. By the time John's hand is drawing back to hit Dean again, Sam is there between them, and he's angry, so angry, so goddamn _sick_ of all of it, and there's a speck of Dean's blood on John's middle knuckle and cold fury in his eyes, and Sam just wants him to stop, just wants him to _get the hell away from his brother._

He thrusts a palm out and shoves John backwards with all of his strength, but John doesn't stagger back or fall. He goes _flying_, so fast that he barely has a second to realize what's happening before he hits the far wall with enough force to shatter the windows. He hangs there, suspended in the air with his legs dangling, before Sam gasps, stumbles backward, and watches his father crumple to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut with a sickening _thud_.

"Dad!" Dean shouts, pulling himself up and rushing to John's side.

He turns him on his back, fingers pressed against their father's throat to feel for a pulse. Sam is rooted to the spot, numb with horror, words caught in his throat. He can't breathe, can't think, and then John groans and shifts in the scattered plaster and shards of glass.

The relief is naked in Dean's eyes, but then his face freezes, shutters. When he looks up and meets Sam's eyes, his expression is grim.

"Get your stuff."

Sam gapes at him.

"_What_?"

"Get your stuff," Dean repeats urgently, launching himself to his feet and hustling Sam out of the living room. "We need to leave. _Now_."


	43. Chapter 43

Eventually, they have to stop. The Impala's running on empty, and they've been driving blind for hours, just trying to put as much road between them and Dad as possible. In the backseat, on top of their stacks of stolen research, Dean's abandoned cell phone is still going off, alerting them to a half-dozen missed calls and an unchecked voicemail message.

Sam leans over the seat and picks it up while Dean stands in the dirt parking lot and gets gas from a rusted pump that looks like it hasn't been serviced since Herbert Hoover lost his bid for reelection. He's staring at it, thumb hovering the call button, when Dean slides back into the car.

Dean looks from the phone to Sam, brows furrowed.

"Hey—"

Sam presses the button, listening to the voicemail message prompt on speaker before shoving it at Dean to input his passcode. Dean frowns down at the device in his hand, thumb hovering over the buttons.

"Sammy…"

"We need to know," Sam says. "We need to know where he is. If he's looking for us."

_If he's hunting me._

Dean swallows and takes the phone from him. He types in 5283, and Sam's lips quirk in spite of himself when he recognizes the numbers that make up his birthday.

"Shut up," Dean grunts preemptively.

He presses the pound key, and the speaker gives a high pitched beep.

"Dean," John Winchester's voice starts, sounding hoarse and desperate. "Dean, you have to listen to me. I know you think you need to protect Sam, but son, he's _dangerous_. It doesn't matter whether it's your brother in there or not. Those powers of his are getting too strong, too fast. If we don't stop it, sooner or later he _is_ going to end up killing someone. Call me. Tell me where you are. We can figure this out together. But Dean, whatever you do, I want you to be careful. Don't do anything to set him off. We don't know what he's capable of."

The call ends, and Sam listens vaguely as the recording asks them whether they want to save the message. Dean presses the buttons to delete it with vicious force before turning off his phone and spiking it into the back with a string of furious curses.

"He's right," Sam says under his breath, and Dean turns to stare at him incredulously.

"What?!"

"_Dad's right_," Sam repeats, louder. "I _am_ dangerous. I could have killed him back there."

"That was an accident!" Dean protests.

"Exactly," Sam exclaims, throwing up his hands. "I don't know how to control it, Dean! How long until I hurt someone else? How long until I hurt _you_?!"

"Hey, hey, slow down," his brother orders. "First off, you're not gonna hurt me."

"I didn't mean to hurt Dad," Sam points out. "I didn't mean to blow up that wardrobe at Max's house, either!"

Dean shakes his head stubbornly.

"That's different."

Sam stares at him incredulously.

"How?" he demands. "You saw what I did back there! Are you really going to sit here and pretend you're okay with it?"

"What do you want me to do, huh, Sammy?" Dean bursts out. "You want me to give Dad a call? Do you want to go back to that? You think he's got any better ideas about how to deal with this than we do?"

"We don't _have_ any ideas, Dean!" Sam reminds him angrily. He runs a hand through his hair, and sighs, deflated. "Look, I'm not saying call Dad. I just think… I think you need to have a plan, okay? If—"

"If what?" Dean interrupts. "If you go dark side? How many times do I have to say it, Sam? That's _not_ gonna happen!"

"Would you listen to yourself?" Sam exclaims. "You keep saying that, but it doesn't mean anything! This isn't going to go away just because you're in denial!"

"Well, I don't think we can know that for sure," Dean retorts stubbornly.

Sam falters, trying very hard to fight a startled laugh.

"You—" he huffs. "God, you're ridiculous."

Dean gives him a little smirk, visibly pleased to have - at least momentarily - distracted Sam from his dark train of thought.

"You're right, though," Sam says hesitantly. "We don't know anything for sure. That's… actually what worries me."

Dean nods reluctantly.

"But on the upside, we definitely robbed the old man blind on the way out," he says, jerking a thumb toward the stacked boxes of research in the backseat. "Give you a couple of hours and you'll know everything he does."

"I could barely make heads or tails of it last time," Sam reminds his brother with a frown.

"And I'm pretty sure the stuff he gave you last time had more holes in it than Swiss cheese," Dean dismisses. "This time you've at least got all the pieces. You'll figure it out."

"Maybe," Sam allows, "but even Dad doesn't know everything. You saw him. That stuff about Mom? He had no idea."

Dean stiffens in his seat.

"Yeah," he says tersely, "'cause it was a goddamn lie. We talked about this, Sammy."

"No, we didn't," Sam argues, "and you can say it isn't true all you want. It doesn't actually prove anything."

Dean glowers at him.

"So you're just gonna believe some _demon_ over Mom?"

"Two demons," Sam corrects him with a sigh. "Yellow Eyes said something about it, too. He said—"

He swallows thickly, shoves down wide, carefree smiles and shining gold curls and the feeling that this - all of this - is betraying her, is Sam spitting on her memory even as he fights tooth and nail to get her justice, _b_ecause he can't, _won't_, ask himself what she'd want more: blood for blood or Sam safe and happy, because he knows her _(knew her)_, but he knows himself, too, and he knows that in this awful, black-tinged world, he can't chase one without the other. He has to do this. He's sorry, _so sorry_, but he _has_ to do this.

"He said Jess was the only one who was really innocent," he starts over, eyes squeezed shut and mouth tight, refusing to water, refusing to waver. "What else could that mean except that Mom was involved somehow?"

"He was trying to get in your head," Dean snaps with a glare.

"Yeah, he was," Sam agrees, nodding, "but as far as I can tell, he was telling the truth about everything else."

He squeezes his hands into fists.

"I'm not gonna just let this go, Dean," he says with more strength than he feels. "I can't, okay? If we find out exactly what they did to me, if we find out why, we might have a chance to stop it."

Dean scowls out the windshield.

"So, what do you want to do? Meg and Yellow Eyes are in the wind, Dad doesn't know anything, and Mom—" his brother breaks off, hands tight on the wheel. "There's no way to know anything for sure."

"Actually, there is," Sam tells him. "We already know who was next on the list, remember?"

"The Boeffels," Dean nods reluctantly. "So, what, track 'em down? Ask the mom if she ever got the crossroad blues?"

"Or we could just sit around arguing some more."

Dean smiles tightly, like he really would rather be having a shouting match right now than look facts in the face and admit that somehow, some way, Mom was involved in this.

"Look," Sam sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, "I'm not asking you to believe Mom did this. Maybe they _were_ lying. Hell, I _hope_ they were lying. But like I said, if we're going to deal with this, we need all the facts. We need to know for sure. _I_ need to know for sure."

Dean glares out the windshield into the darkness.

"It's the only lead we've got, Dean," Sam tells him softly. "Where else are we gonna go?"

His brother blows out a long, harsh breath, and then, without a word, he cranks the keys, angles them back onto the road, and takes the highway that will lead them toward Minnesota.


	44. Chapter 44

They drive through the night, and by the time they're approaching Blue Earth, the sun is starting to rise, its dim light filtered through the thick fog that hangs over miles and miles of farmland. Dean smacks Sam on the chest with his palm, startling him out of an uneasy half-sleep and watches his brother jump half a foot out of his seat before turning to glare at Dean blearily.

"Mornin', Sammy!" Dean says with paper-thin cheer. "You wanna stop by ol' Jolly Green before we get to Pastor Jim's?"

"Yeah, I'll pass," Sam says, crinkling his nose.

Dean chuckles.

"C'mon, you used to love that big old son of a bitch!"

Sam rolls his eyes.

"Pretty sure that was you, Dean," he bitches, a flush creeping up his neck.

It's true, at least to a point. Dean really had enjoyed the fifty-some-odd foot tall statue, if only because little Sammy had found it utterly terrifying, and it had been Dean's big brotherly duty to point it out every time their dad took Highway 169 to get to Pastor Jim's place and put them within range of its frozen, plastic-y, green grin.

"You sure?" he asks with a smirk. "'Cause I can still make the turn-off."

Sam huffs and turns away, refusing to dignify that with a response. Dean's smile lasts him all the way down the interstate and doesn't fall away until they're pulling up outside Calvary Lutheran Church and he's puts her in park, frowning deeply at the speedometer.

Sam throws open his door, and Dean catches him by the elbow.

"Hey. Don't forget this."

He digs Sam's Taurus out of the backseat, holds it out to him by the barrel. Sam stares at him incredulously.

"Dude, this is _Pastor Jim_," he reminds, looking at Dean like maybe he's been breathing in gas fumes for too long, which is probably true, but he's still right on this one. "We've known him practically our whole lives!"

"Yeah," Dean agrees, nodding, "because he's friends with _Dad_."

They've been avoiding talking about it, neither one willing to admit out loud that they're running every bit as much as they're chasing a lead, not ready to think about who exactly it is they're running from and why. But as big of a fan as Dean is of denial, he's not going to let them walk into this without being prepared for the worst. They can't afford to be thinking the best of people right now, especially not hunters, and especially not when it's Sammy's life at stake.

"Dean—"

"I'm not sayin' ventilate the guy," Dean interrupts, mouth tight and shoulders rigid with tension. "I'm just sayin'… watch yourself. Alright?"

Sam hesitates for a moment before taking the gun and tucking it into the back of his pants with a "Humoring You, You Paranoid Freak of Nature" sigh, which is just goddamn fine with Dean. Sam wants to roll his eyes at this? To ignore the fact that Dad could've put the APB out on them with everyone from hunters to local PD to the goddamn Feds, tellin' 'em god knows what about Sam and his powers to bring who-the-hell-knows to their doorstep, kill-happy and gunning for Sam.

And Dean gets that his brother is all warm-n-fuzzy for Pastor Jim, he does. He gets that for a long time there, the padre was the only person outside of Dean Sammy could really unload on.

For a while, he mighta been the _only_ person Sammy could unload on.

So yeah, Dean gets why his little brother might be on the "We Can Trust Him" side of the line here, and he fucking respects that, but on the incredibly likely chance that yet another shitty-ass aspect of their shitty-ass lives decides to blow up in their fucking faces again, Dean's gonna be there, awake and armed and with the mother of all 'I Told You So's ready and waiting.

When they reach the main entrance, the church doors are unlocked. Although the main lights are off, the candles are lit, long rows of red votives and candelabras stacked with tall, white tapers sending out a dim, warm glow in contrast to the pastel-colored sunlight shining through the massive stained glass windows that line the chapel.

It looks exactly the same as it has since Dean was a kid, from the polished wrought-iron crosses to the massive, gleaming organ behind the pulpit, and Dean feels just as out of place standing there in his battered leather jacket and dirt-caked biker boots as he did back then. He glances over at his brother and finds his face fixed in an expression of wet-eyed fondness that kills the question on Dean's tongue about whether or not Sam's ever felt the same.

They're standing there less than ten seconds before they hear footsteps and Jim Murphy emerges from one of the heavy, wooden doors at the back of the sanctuary with a thick Bible open in one hand. He glances up, sees them standing there, and smiles warmly.

"Sam. Dean," he says in greeting. "It's good to see you, boys."

He doesn't look even a little bit surprised to find them here.

"You get a call from our dad last night?" Dean asks him gruffly, clenching a fist to keep from reaching back, getting a hand on his Colt.

Pastor Jim sets the book down on the pulpit and takes a few steps closer.

"I did," he confirms. "He seemed… _very_ determined to track you two down. Told me if I saw you I needed to call him right away so he could get over here."

"He tell you _why_ he wants to find us so bad?"

Pastor Jim nods, his grey eyebrows drawn tight together.

"You believe him?" Dean wants to know, taking a half-step in front of Sammy before the question's even all the way out.

The best exit's behind them, his baby waiting just outside the sanctuary, primed and ready to put this latest mistake in their rearview if the preacher so much as _twitches_ in Sam's direction.

Jim sighs.

"I know that _John_ believes it," he says, "but I have to trust what I see with my eyes. You boys know as well as I do that nothing demonic would be able to come in here. This is holy ground."

Dean relaxes minutely but stays in front of Sammy all the same.

"So you're not going to call Dad?" Sam asks from over his brother's shoulder.

"I don't think that's my place," Pastor Jim tells them, running a hand over the cover of the Bible. "I'd like to see you boys call him yourselves and work all of this out, but that's your decision."

Dean clears his throat.

"Yeah, well. Maybe later."

"Pastor Jim," Sam starts, finally nudging his way past Dean with a little huff of irritation, "we need to speak to the family that you helped out of Tennessee. Can you tell us where they are?"

"I've got 'em here," Jim supplies with a nod. "Don't know of many places safer than this for trying to escape the powers of Hell. Why? Do you think they know something?"

Dean says, "No," at the same time Sam says, "Yes."

Pastor Jim glances between them, frowning.

"Well, you're welcome to ask, but I don't think you'll get much. They're still buying John's story about being put into Witness Protection. At least for now."

Dean raises an eyebrow at his brother and gets a quick, bitchy little huff in response, because civvies who're still swallowing the Witness Protection shtick at this point aren't generally the sharpest tools in the shed, much less demon-dealing masters of the supernatural world.

"It can't hurt to try," Sam insists, as much to Dean as to Pastor Jim.

The parsonage where Pastor Jim lives is a little set up attached to the back of the church, just a few rooms crammed up against the back of the sanctuary, and for all that they're small, for all that they can feel every bit as confining as the shittiest of their shitty motel rooms, Dean's always felt a hundred times more comfortable back here than out in the church proper.

Yeah, there's always been the creased, peeling holy roller crap on the walls, the church flyers and pamphlets stacked in the hallway, and at least one box overflowing with junk for some church drive or another under the kitchen table, a million little reminders that Jim not only lives where he works, he takes his work home with him. But it doesn't really bug Dean. Never really rubbed him the wrong way, eating his Cheerios over a stack of old church programs, Jim's sermon notes spilling over the kitchen counter as Sammy used the Vulgate Prologues as Tinker Toys. That was just what you got when you went to Jim's.

Caleb had guns. Bobby had books and booze. Jim had Jesus.

It was part and parcel with the guy, and most of the time, Dean could just push it away as Jim's thing, like how Bobby couldn't make a coffee without Irishing it or Caleb always kept ammo taped up under the tables, ordered by caliber, left to right.

It wasn't like when Dean was in the sanctuary, candles and saints looming over him, everything too quiet and too heavy, the whole place thick and hushed with years and meaning, dumb sons of bitches who bit it for Jesus just staring down at him, watching him track mud and blood and cynicism all over their sacred goddamn carpet.

But Jim's apartment? The parsonage? None of that feel. Just research and thrift shop furniture, holy water and iron rounds spilling off the old pews lining the cramped halls, their plaques cracked and faded, the lettering worn so faint you couldn't tell if it read "In Loving Memory" or "Elvis Sat Here." Just somewhere to crash, to heal up, to keep your ear to the ground for another hunt while swiping some sacramental wine on the sly.

It was normal, thank god.

Or, you know. Someone.

And Dean hopes like hell it can stay that way, for Sammy.

* * *

><p>When Jim lets Sam and Dean in through the innocuous but no doubt heavily warded back door, Brian Boeffel is fixing himself a cup of coffee in the half-kitchen. He glowers at them out of red-rimmed eyes, powdered creamer scattering over cliparted flyers for the church's canned food drive as he flings it into the mug. It's obvious that the man is on edge, suspicious. Sam can't say be blames him, given the circumstances.<p>

"US Marshalls," is the story Dean chooses to go with, keeping up the lie their dad used back in Tennessee.

"I just don't understand any of this," Brian says tightly, settling down onto Pastor Jim's gently-worn couch. "The other guy said it was some sort of… serial killer?"

Pastor Jim drags over a couple of chairs from his kitchen table so Sam and Dean can sit across from him.

"That's probably the best way to put it, yeah," Dean agrees.

Brain shakes his head, rasping a palm across his stubbly jaw.

"And you people really think this guys was after _us?_" he asks, brows drawn together.

"Not you," Sam tells him, watching his reaction carefully. "Your daughter."

Brian's expression is nothing short of bone-deep horror. Pastor Jim reaches out and squeezes his shoulder in comfort, his face grim and pale. He seems just as shaken as Brian, and Sam has to wonder exactly how much their father told him about all of this.

"Melissa's just a baby," Brian says shakily. "The hell could he possibly—?"

"Believe me, Mr. Boeffel, you don't wanna know any more about this sicko than you already do," Dean tells him truthfully. "Now, we're doing our best to catch the son of a bitch, but we may need your help."

"Yeah," Brian rasps. "I mean, I don't know what I could… I know they say it's usually somebody you know, but… _Jesus_."

He presses the heels of his palms against his eyes.

"God, this is _crazy_."

Sam can't help feeling sorry for the man. Yesterday, he was just a new father with a job and a home and a life that Sam knows he will _never_ be able to go back to. Whether the Boeffel's have realized it or not, that's all over now. The world they thought they lived in never existed at all, and every day for the rest of their lives, they'll wake up with the knowledge that monsters – of one kind or another – are real, are out to get them, could be _anybody_.

All they'll have now is each other, and the worst part of it is, Sam still isn't sure that there isn't a monster hiding inside one of them, too.

"Mr. Boeffel, listen to me," Dean says, leaning forward. "We're gonna get this guy. We're gonna end it, okay? Just tell us whatever you can, and we'll figure it out from there."

Brian nods.

"Tell me what you need to know," he rasps.

"Your wife should be here for this," Sam tells him firmly.

"Yeah, all right," the man agrees tiredly. "Sarah's just putting the baby down. I'll go get her."

He stands and walks slowly down the short hallway, shoulders slumped and head down, and knocks gently on the door of the study-cum-guest bedroom at the end. Sam tries craning his neck to get his first glimpse of Sarah Boeffel as she cracks open the door, but he can't make her out in the dim light. Whatever Brian has to tell her is lost in the hushed tones of their voices and the gentle hum of the fan.

"We need to tell them the truth," Sam says under his breath. "It'll be easier to get the information we need if they know."

"Sure," Dean scoffs. "They're gonna be real helpful after a bombshell like _that_."

"They'll have to find out eventually," Sam reminds him. "For all we know, they could still be in danger. We can't just keep them in the dark."

"No, but we can kill this thing before it comes after them again," Dean argues. "Anyway, like Pastor Jim said, there's no safer place for them to wait it out than on holy ground, right? No demons allowed."

"Of course," Jim agrees, "and they're welcome to stay as long as they need."

"Besides," Dean continues, "I think they're going to be a lot more cooperative with law enforcement than with some random whackjobs who dragged them out of their house in the middle of the night, trucked them half-way across the country, and then started babbling about demons."

Sam can't exactly argue when he puts it like that, but before they can talk about it more, Sarah Boeffel pads over and sinks onto the couch. She's barefoot, tired-eyed, and visibly shaken. She uses the excuse of straightening her rumpled sweater and sweeping her unwashed hair up into a messy ponytail to avoid their gaze a little longer.

"Mrs. Boeffel," Sam says lowly.

Her eyes dart up, and she looks him in the eye for the first time. Sam spends a moment searching her face, but he can't tell yet whether the emotion there is simple worry or something far, far worse.

Like guilt.

"Your husband told you why we're here?"

She nods twice, grabbing for Brian's hand as soon as he sits down next to her with a grip so tight that Sam can see the rise of her knuckles go bone white.

"You— You want to ask us questions about some nutjob you think wants to kill us," Sarah says, her voice pitching high at the end like it's almost a question, like she just can't believe what she's saying.

"That's right," Sam answers in that same, low voice. "Did your husband tell you what this guy was after?"

"_Melissa_," Sarah forces out, her voice breaking.

She blinks hard against very real tears, and Sam has to fight the urge to comfort her. It doesn't prove anything, he reminds himself. She may love that baby with all of her heart. That doesn't mean that Sam is wrong about this.

That doesn't mean that he's wrong about what the sweating, the fidgeting, fluttering hands all mean. That doesn't mean that this woman doesn't look haunted, _hunted_, like she can just hear the clock ticking, ticking away as something, some dark, sinister _something_, comes closer, closes in. That doesn't mean he's wrong about what Yellow Eyes said, what Meg as good as _confirmed_.

There's a _pattern_ here, there's _lore_, the... the _thing_ this woman did to that baby- _her_ baby. Her _daughter_.

He's not wrong about this. He's _not__._

But_God_, does he want to be.

He can feel Dean's eyes on him, knows that his brother has been thrown off by Sam not jumping in with the sensitivity, with the comfort, their go-to good cop dropping his badge with a stony glare and a pregnant pause, but Dean recovers quickly, picks right up. It's one of the many things that make Sam's brother a good hunter. He's nothing if not adaptable.

"I know this must be tough for both of you to hear," Dean says gently, leaning in. "We appreciate you taking the time to help us out. We'll try to make this as quick as possible and let you get back to your daughter."

The Boeffels agree gratefully. Dean gives them the usual run-down of cop questions ("Has anyone shown any unusual interest in your daughter lately?") interspersed with the weirder and almost always more useful ones ("Any strange smells? Lights flickering?"), but the couple just keep shaking their heads. No, they didn't see anything. No, they didn't hear anything. No, of course they didn't _feel_ anything unusual.

"How about in your past?" Sam enquires. "Anything we should know? Strange encounters, weird coincidences, anything like that?"

"No," Sarah says. "Not that I can think of."

Sam thinks about Meg laughing at them out of a cadaver's bloodied mouth, remembers her saying '_He saved me_.'

"Have either of you ever had any near-death experiences?" he asks suddenly, digging, fishing, but maybe, just maybe...

Brian stares at him incredulously.

"Why would _that_ matter?"

"Trust us," Sam insists. "Every detail is important."

"These guys, they fixate." Dean explains, takes Sam's hunch and runs with it. "The littlest thing, something from ages ago, it could be what cracks this one, helps us nail this guy."

Brian shakes his head.

"No," he starts to say, and then: "Well, actually... But that had to be, what, a decade ago?"

He turns to his wife for her confirmation, a tight nod with her mouth in a short, pinched line. Dean leans forward, eyebrows raised, and makes a sweeping gesture that means _go on_.

"Was out hunting with a buddy of mine," Brian explains. "Jackass forgot to check his safety. Ended up shooting me right in the goddamn back."

Sarah shakes her head, squeezing her eyes shut against the memory.

"You were together then?" Sam asks.

"Since high school," Brian confirms.

"Getting that call was the worst moment of my life," Sarah says tremulously. "I thought—"

Brian cups his free hand over their joined ones.

"Was a little touch and go there," he explains. "Sucker grazed my spine. They told my family I'd probably never walk again, but…"

He shrugs.

"You made a full recovery." Dean supplies.

"That's right. Once the swelling went down, turned out they'd jumped the gun. I was completely fine. Just a couple of scars richer."

"That doesn't sound like a mistake doctors usually make," Sam says, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. "Did they ever give you an explanation?"

"Nope," Brian tells them with a shrug. "Was too relieved to care about 'why,' really."

"It was a miracle," his wife adds firmly.

Sam and Dean exchange subtle glances.

A miracle. _Right_.

"And while all this was going on, do you remember any strange things happening?" Dean prompts. "Anybody unusual hanging around? Anything weird at all?"

An expression of recognition flits across Sarah's face, her features creasing minutely before she smoothes it over again. If Sam hadn't been watching her so closely, he would have missed it completely.

"It's all pretty much a blur to me," Brian tells them. "Sorry."

"How about you, Mrs. Boeffel?" Sam asks quietly, leaning even closer and peering intently into her face. "Do you remember anything like that? Someone who seemed just a little too interested in what was going on? Maybe someone who said they could help?"

Her eyes flicker to the right then the left, eyelashes fluttering nervously.

"No," she whispers.

"Really?" Sam presses. "Think carefully. Maybe they had yellow eyes?"

Her eyes go wide, gaze snapping up to meet his. The blood leaches from her cheeks.

"_No_," she croaks.

"Yellow eyes?" Brian scoffs. "Ten goddamn years ago, she's 'sposed to remember if some random weirdo had yellow goddamn eyes?"

Sam misses whatever bullshit Dean pacifies him with. He stares at Sarah as she clamors to her feet.

"C-can I go now?" she stammers hurriedly. "I'm sorry, I just— I need to feed the baby."

Sam can't answer. His jaw is clenched so tight it hurts. His tongue feels like it's turned to stone in his mouth.

"Of course," Pastor Jim answers for him, his gentle tone belied by the hard, searching look in his eyes. "I think that's enough questions for now."

Sam can hear Dean still talking to Brian Boeffel, but the second he hears the bedroom door close with a muted click, he stands jerkily and strides quickly out of the back door of parsonage and through into the church.

"Sammy!" Dean catches up with him in the chapel, grabbing him by the elbow. "Sam!"

Sam whirls on him.

"She did it," he says thickly. "She did it, Dean."

"We don't know—" Dean protests.

"You _saw_ her," Sam chokes out. "She knew Yellow Eyes. She— God, she _sold_ that baby to a demon so she wouldn't have to deal with having a husband in a wheelchair!"

"We don't know _what_ she did," Dean insists. "Come on, you're always the one saying we need to get all the info before we make a judgment, right? Yeah, she's acting suspicious but—"

Sam glares, his vision blurred by angry tears.

"Boys," Pastor Jim interrupts, effectively cutting off whatever horrible words were about to spill out of Sam's mouth like bile. "You two all right?"

"Fine," Dean snaps. Sam nods mutely.

"Dean, Mr. Boeffel's asking for you," Pastor Jim says. "You mind going back in there and putting his mind at a little more at ease?"

Dean looks at Sam for a beat, jaw tight as the urge to stay, to fight, to swear up and down against the facts, the evidence, against all reason that their mother didn't sell him to the monster that took everything from them before he was even born.

"Sure," his brother grinds out finally, mouth hard, jaw stubborn. "Be right back."

The big wooden door swings shut heavily behind him, the muted thump echoing off of the rafters, and Sam gives the older man a grateful look.

"What do you say we get some air?" Pastor Jim asks kindly.

Sam can't keep the tears from spilling hotly down his face as he nods, follows the gentle, guiding hand on his back through the hush of the sanctuary.


	45. Chapter 45

They sit on the brick steps of the church while Sam haltingly explains what Yellow Eyes and Meg told him last night and what he suspects that their mom and Sarah Boeffel have done, exactly what they both agreed to. He picks nervously at the little weeds that are springing up between the bricks. His eyes trace the irregular smudges of masonry, the cracks running through the sidewalk, the scuffs on the toes of his shoes as he talks, unable to meet Pastor Jim's gaze.

Sam can't tell how much Dad told him. Pastor Jim listens carefully, thoughtfully, never passing judgment, just like he always has, and if he interrupts, it's only to ask for more information.

Sam's throat draws tight when he describes the awful, blood-stained vision of the future that Yellow Eyes showed him. He doesn't smooth over the painful, jagged edges of the truth, about what he can do, about who he is, no matter how much he wants to. Pastor Jim deserves to know what he's dealing with.

Sam owes him that much.

"So, that's it. That's the whole story," he finishes lamely, flopping a hand in front of him, the gesture somehow supposed to encompass his soul being spoken for before he was even conceived, his blood being as black and tainted as any of the evil, awful things they've battled over the years, his destiny being nothing but death and destruction and the end of everything and everyone he's ever loved.

Pastor Jim sighs.

"Oh, Sam," he murmurs softly. "I'm so sorry."

He sounds so very, sincerely sympathetic that Sam wants to cry again. He presses his fists tight against his eyes, tamps it down, holds tight because if he starts there is a very real, very immediate chance that he might never stop.

"Are you going to be okay?" Jim asks, a warm, comforting hand coming up to rest on Sam's shoulder.

Sam knows he's just asking that because it's what people say when someone gets awful, life-shattering news. He already knows the answer, and anyway, Sam can't bring himself to lie.

"No," he chokes out, voice tilting up at the end as he suppresses a sob. "I don't think I am."

Pastor Jim makes a soothing noise, hand on Sam's back traveling in slow, soothing circles, just like he used to do when Sam was a kid. Sam breathes deep, collects himself.

"I don't know what to do," he admits. "I just…"

He trails off, tries to take the fear and panic and determination that they get to the bottom of this, that they get answers and justice and that Melissa Boeffel, that sweet, innocent baby girl in the soft pink onesie, never has to know a life haunted by nursery fires and twisted, evil yellow eyes, never has to know that she is empty inside, empty and black and wrong and make it, all of it, into words, but he just- he _can't_, can't do anything but breathe through the pain and swallow back tears at the memory of the shock on Dean's face, the hollow, awful crash of their father hitting that cabin wall.

Pastor Jim waits patiently, just sits and waits and makes those same slow, soothing circles on Sam's back.

"Just breathe, Sam," he murmurs. "We'll get through this."

"It's like…" Sam starts, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. "You remember when I was fifteen and Dad dropped me off here for a month? Right after I ran away to Flagstaff?"

Pastor Jim smiles a little at the memory.

"You were pretty upset then, too," he recalls.

"Upset? Probably more like unbearable," Sam snorts bitterly. "I kept expecting you to treat me like a prisoner, like they'd been doing. But you didn't. You acted like you trusted me."

"I did trust you," the other man says easily.

"You shouldn't have," Sam tells him with a tight, sad smile. "I must have walked up and down the highway a dozen times planning on hitching a ride. I stole money out of your jacket pocket one day when you were down at the hospital. Got all the way to the bus station. I even bought the ticket."

"But you didn't leave," Pastor Jim points out.

"Only because I didn't have anywhere to go," Sam sighs. "I was standing there in line with everything I owned in a duffel bag, and then all of a sudden, I thought, 'What's the point?' Dad was just going to track me down and drag me back in, anyway. I remember, I walked all the way back to the church and you were waiting right here on the steps. You left the lights on for me, like you knew I'd come back."

Pastor Jim smiles.

"I didn't know," he admits, "but I hoped you would. And I knew if I tried to force you to, you'd never open up to me again. Thought it was worth taking the chance."

"If I _hadn't_ come back, my dad would have made you regret that," Sam says wryly.

"Your faith in me isn't something I'd be willing to sacrifice for John's _notoriously_ fragile good opinion. Your safety, on the other hand? Well," he grins, "I'm a hunter, Sam, and Blue Earth isn't exactly a big town. I knew exactly where you were. I would've gotten a call the second you set foot on that bus."

Sam is startled into a laugh.

"What, you put an APB out on me to all your blue-haired church ladies?"

"I said I trusted you, not that I was an idiot," Pastor Jim jokes. "Anyway, it was just insurance. You may have been angry and hurting, but you were a good kid, Sam. I always knew that."

"Yeah, that's what you told me then, too," Sam says. "You were the only person who talked to me about why I ran away. You were the only one who tried to understand. Dad and Dean just… yelled at me about it."

"They were scared," Jim tells him.

"I know," Sam nods, "and I'm not blaming them. I'm just saying… You listened. I don't know if I ever thanked you for that. For _everything_ you did."

For being willing to talk to Sam about colleges, for sending off his transcripts, and answering Sam's furtive calls to tell him about every acceptance letter and scholarship offer. For passing along notes between him and Dean in those two years before they let that one stupid fight drive them apart. For letting Sam be Sam and never once making him feel like he was wrong for it.

"Do you remember what I told you that night?" Sam asks quietly, eyes back on his shoes like they're the most interesting thing he's ever seen. "How I said I'd always felt _wrong_ on the inside? Like there was something about me that was broken and twisted, something I just couldn't fix? I'd never told anyone that. But you- you said there wasn't anything wrong with me. You said I was kind and smart and that, even when I made mistakes, God still loved me. That I was good. I wanted to believe you. I really, really did."

He laughs bitterly.

"But turns out, I was right. There really _is_ something wrong with me."

"Sam…" Pastor Jim starts gently.

"It all makes sense now," Sam interrupts, his words tumbling out in an angry rush. "Why I always felt like I didn't belong anywhere. Why I couldn't be like Dad or Dean no matter how hard I tried. I was fighting against nature. I was never meant to be a hunter. I'm one of the _monsters_."

Pastor Jim sighs deeply, shifting closer to him on the steps.

"Maybe you aren't what you thought you were," Jim begins, "but you want to know the big secret, Sam? We've all got monsters inside of us. We've all got our darkness. That doesn't mean we're not good people. It doesn't mean God doesn't love us. And it doesn't mean that we can't be saved, Sam. Salvation? It was made for—"

"'For sinners,'" Sam finishes with a heavy nod, hands shoving through his hair. "Yeah, I remember. I do. But- but what if I can't be saved? What if I can't fight it? What if—?"

He breaks off the thought, running his palms down the thighs of his jeans.

"What if what, Sam?" Jim prompts.

Sam clenches his jaw, meets his eyes.

"What if this is my destiny? What if I become the monster they say I am?"

Jim is quiet for a moment.

"Well, I don't know about destiny," he says finally, "but I do know this: You're not alone here, Sam. And if you can't fight this, we'll fight for you."

"I'm scared," Sam admits softly. "I don't want to hurt anyone."

Pastor Jim's palm rests warm and solid on his back.

"You won't," he promises.


	46. Chapter 46

It doesn't take Dean a lot of time to settle the Boeffel situation. In fact, he's pretty sure Pastor Jim only sent him after Bryan so he could have an excuse to get Dean and Sam away from each other. Usually, Dean would resent the hell out of that, but when Sam and Pastor Jim finally come back inside the building, his little brother seems to be feeling better, a little less About to Fly Off the Handle and a little more Keeping It Together for the Case, and that's not a fix, it's not anything more than delaying the inevitable blow up where they finally get all the shit that's building up between them – Mom, Dad, Sammy's goddamn demon powers, and how, no matter what the black-eyed crowd might have to say about it, his little brother very definitely is not evil or short a soul or one bitchfit away from ending the goddamn world - out in the open.

And Dean would love to deal with that shit, he really would. He's love to cram it through Sammy's too-big goddamn brain how he's not evil and Mom's never dealt with the goddamn devil and there's no way a nerdy poindexter like him is ever ending the fucking world, but they've got their only leads scared as hell and seconds from bolting, they've got Dad calling who-knows-how-many of the hunting horde down on them, and there's just not any goddamn time for any of it.

Thank god, Sam's talk with Jim seems to have helped. Not fixed what's weighing on Sammy the worst, not by a long shot, but whatever Jim said to the kid, it's got a Band-Aid over the bullet hole, at least for now.

Dean wouldn't have been able to do that. He's angry enough himself, about Dad, about the things these demons have done to his baby brother, about all of it. He's pissed, too, about the way Sam is sure, _so damn sure_, about all the wrong goddamn things. As far as Dean can see, he'd already decided Mom was guilty back at the cabin, and everything they discover now is just enforcing this fucked-up idea he's got in his head that he's evil and Mom sold him and- and...

It doesn't help that even Dean has to admit the evidence is piling up.

He shakes his head, dismissing the thought. It's not fair to blame Sam for believing it, not really, but Dean knows better. As much as he hates the way Dad said it, he wasn't wrong. Sam never knew Mom. Dean did. Dean knows what kind of person she was, and she wasn't someone who would make a deal with a demon. She would never have done anything to hurt Sam. _Never_.

Dean can't prove it, though, and he knows that's what Sam – smart, analytical, research-junkie Sam – needs.

They can get proof, though, proof that whatever Sarah Boeffel did was miles apart from however things went down back in Lawrence, proof that no matter how much spoonbending the kid can do, Sam is just as normal, just as _human_, as anyone else in the goddamn room, proof that no matter what it looks like right now, no matter how bad, how damning what they've got might be, what Dean knows is the truth.

Dean's mom? His brother? His family?

They're good. Real. And if Sam needs proof to believe it, then Dean'll find the goddamn proof, because no matter what crap Sammy has running through his head about Mom and Yellow Eyes and why he can do the things he can do, Dean remembers his mom.

He remembers how she whispered to Sammy when he was still just a bump under her dress, a mountain for Dean to climb when he was bored and Mom was too tired to play with him. He remembers how she'd smile over baby Sammy's crib, how she'd help Dean up so he could kiss his little brother goodnight.

He remembers how she'd hold him close after, both watching over Sammy asleep in his crib, and murmur that Dean was a big brother now, that Sammy was his to look out for, to protect.

So when Pastor Jim says: "Okay, boys. Let's figure this out together," all Dean thinks is "_Perfect_."

If Sam wants proof, Dean will find it. He'll prove that Mom is innocent, prove that they can beat this. Prove that Sam has a choice about being Yellow Eyes Junior or the frickin' Anti-Christ or whatever it is he's supposed to become.

One thing's for certain, though. They're not getting anything else out of Sarah Boeffel, at least not tonight, so Pastor Jim suggests putting their heads together and tying to flesh out what they've got so far with the help of his impressive stash of demon hunting texts.

"Thank you for this," Sam says, all dewy-eyed appreciation and drawn-in brow, while Jim helps Sam and Dean carry in the last few boxes of Dad's stolen research.

Dean appreciates Jim Murphy's silence on the whole 'research-nabbing' thing, especially since he's sure it came up in the conversation he had with Dad this morning. He wonders, privately, if John has told his friend about the gun that's still tucked into Dean's jacket pocket, too. Probably not. Dad's way too much of a paranoid bastard to mention something like that over the phone.

It must be genetic, because as much as Dean likes Pastor Jim, he sure as hell isn't jumping to bring up the Colt. He's pissed enough that Dad told other hunters – no matter _who_ they are – about Sam, and he's silently thankful that the Boeffels were sent off with one of Dad's more rational buddies. As much as Dean and Sam had liked Caleb growing up, they sure as hell won't be going within a hundred miles of the arms dealer any time soon. The Roadhouse is off limits now, too. Ellen Harvelle seemed like a nice enough lady, sure, but she's not exactly in Dean's circle of trust, the hunters hanging around her bar even less so.

Then again, seeing as Dean's circle of trust pretty much just consists of him and Sam now, he guesses it's really more of a line.

Bobby might make the list, he thinks. After all, he was there for them in Covington and after the fire in Palo Alto. Tipped them off about Ellen and Bill Harvelle which ended up netting them the Colt. Things get bad enough, might be he could be counted on to come down on their side. Then again, that could just as easily be wishful thinking on Dean's part.

No, it's better to avoid hunters for now. Fuck, maybe forever. Even if Dad only told his handful of remaining allies what Sam is, word spreads fast in their circles. Sam'll spend the rest of his life having to look over his shoulder because of this, never knowing when some wanna-be white knight will decide to take a shot at him thinking he's one of the monsters.

It's enough to have Dean's skin crawling, to have him constantly checking his six for this asshole or the next, whatever moron is stupid enough to hear the word John's spreading like wildfire and decide to strike out for the greater fucking good. For someone to take a shot at offing Dean's little brother.

For someone to decide it's their day to die a goddamn hero.

Because there's no coming back from that. There's no way in hell Dean's gonna let anyone, any stupid son of a bitch who so much as _looks_at Sam cross-eyed, walk away. Either they don't think he's human or they don't care, and the day they cross Dean's path is the day they stop breathin'.

Dean knows what goes into making a decision like that. Knows what it takes to decide that the mission is more important than a human life, even one so- so- so damn _good_ as Sam. He's looked that choice down the barrel and come down on his brother's side without a second thought. Because no matter what Sam can do, no matter what's in his past or in his blood, he is Dean's brother. He is Dean's brother, his _Sammy_, and that means he gets saved.

No matter what, he gets saved.

And anyone who thinks different better stay outta the way or make their peace with the fucking Lord.

He and Sam just need their answers. They need answers and then they need to get moving, somewhere, _anywhere_, that Dad's contacts and Yellow Eyes' fucking omens aren't and then they hang back. Let things get back to normal.

The sooner Sam and Dean can shut the book on this and get the hell back on the road, the better in Dean's book.

"You can set those down wherever," Pastor Jim tells them, nudging open the door to his bedroom with his hip.

The room is clean but sparse. There's a big, quilted bed in the center and a tall lamp standing beside a bedside table that's decorated with a stone cross, a bible, and a picture of a dark-haired little girl that Dean doesn't recognize. On the left-side wall, he has a threadbare recliner next to a tall bookshelf stocked with books of varying size and age that seem to all have the words "Church" or "Christ" in their titles.

Dean drops his box of papers on the carpeted floor in front of the bed's wooden footboard, and Sam follows his lead.

"You don't think the Boeffel's will get suspicious if we're still hanging around?" he asks quietly.

"Between you and Dad, we've got 'em pretty shaken up," Dean shrugs. "I'm guessing they won't question having some extra protection for the day. As long as we keep the demon talk in the bedroom."

He wiggles his eyebrows, but Sam just nods, crouches down, and starts shifting through the stacks of paper.

"Pastor Jim, do you mind if I use your walls?" he asks, unfolding a map and squinting at it curiously.

"That's fine, Sam," the man replies and fiddles around in the bedside table for a while before he produces a roll of tape. "Dean, you mind helping me bring up some books from downstairs?"

"No problem." Dean swallows down the paranoia, the knee-jerk refusal to leave his brother's side with a tight nod.

It'll be fine. This is Jim, the hunting world's answer to Mr. Rodgers. The guy could give Sam a run for his money on the dewy sensitivity front, and besides, if he was gonna make a move, he'd have made it already.

"Oh," Pastor Jim adds, "and if the Boeffel's are going to be here for the foreseeable future, we'll need to move some weapons around. If it were just me, I wouldn't worry about reaching the panic room in time—"

"But with two civilians and a baby, not so much," Dean finishes. "Looks like you're finally gonna have to axe that whole 'No Heat in the House of God' rule."

If the preacher is bothered by the semi-blasphemous way Dean chose to phrase that, he doesn't show it.

"So it would seem." Jim admits with a wry smirk. "I trust you won't be too disappointed, Dean?"

"Always said your sermons'd be better with some C-4 and salt rounds," Dean tosses back with an easy grin. "Sam, y'mind if we use these boxes?"

Sam hums absently, his eyes never leaving the map in front of him. Dean snatches up one of the empty boxes and empties another in a haphazard pile on the floor before Sam can realize what he just agreed to and heads for the door, Pastor Jim at his heels.

"Hey, Sammy?" Dean calls back before he shuts the door. "Holler if you need anything, all right?"

"Coffee," Sam responds without looking up.

Dean rolls his eyes and pulls the bedroom door shut after him, striding past Brian Boeffel, who shoots them a bleary, bloodshot glare from where he's camped out at the battered kitchen table, picking at the cracked laminate and sullenly nursing a chipped mug of coffee.

"Need to get that guy a damn crossword," Dean mutters as he and Jim make their way through the deserted church.

"Quiet reflection does seem to leave him a might..." Jim trails off, apparently trying and failing to find a diplomatic way to say 'crotchety as fuck.'

"Asshole-ier?" Dean finishes with a smirk, which earns him a 'Not in a House of The Lord Young Man' glare from Pastor Jim.

"Tellin' you, a TV? Chance to catch the game, maybe some Springer? It'd go a long way toward takin' the stick outta that guy's ass," Dean insists as they walk together down the stone steps to the converted sepulcher. "_Prisons_ have got better entertainment than your place, padre. At least there you can walk around the yard."

Jim huffs out a tiny laugh while he fits his key into one of the heavy padlocks.

"Calvary Lutheran Church: It's worse than prison," he quips. "Won't be putting _that_ on the sign."

Dean chuckles.

"Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em."

"Dean, you've been trying to get me to buy a television set since you were eight years old," Jim says, swinging open one of the thick, wooden doors. "If I give in now, _you win_."

"Hey, I'm just trying to help those poor people," Dean grins, pressing a palm against his chest in mock-sincerity. "God created TV so we'd be happy, Pastor Jim. He would _want_ us to enjoy it."

"When you pay for it, you can watch it," Pastor Jim responds by rote.

Dean laughs, following him into the room and setting his box down on the desk.

"That argument's not gonna work on me anymore, old man. I've got my own funds now."

Pastor Jim hums thoughtfully.

"It's your decision," he responds cheerfully. "If you choose to tempt fate by bringing what amounts to stolen goods into the house of the Lord, who am I to stop you? And after all, I'm sure Federal Marshalls trying to catch crazed murderers have nothing better to do than shop for TVs. I'm sure your bringing in one wouldn't raise any ire or suspicion at all, especially not from Mr. Boeffel, who has been nothing but compliant so far."

Dean opens his mouth to protest and then, remembering the sour, surly look on Bryan Boeffel's face as they left the parsonage, snaps it shut again. Pastor Jim smirks triumphantly.

He turns to survey the wall nearest to the door, which boasts a weapons collection that would make the MacManus brothers green with envy. He seems to think for a second, his hand hovering over one gun, then another, then the knives, before he gives up with a sigh.

"Let's just take everything," he suggests finally.

"You can never be too prepared," Dean agrees with a grin.

It'll take a couple of trips, but that'd still be faster than hem-ing and haw-ing over what to bring. Dean knows it's ridiculous and paranoid, but he just _does not_ like leaving Sam alone like this. The longer his little brother's out of his sight, the tighter the uneasy knot in his stomach gets. The harder and harder it becomes to shake the fear of tearing back into that bedroom and finding Dad standing there, his gun trained on Sam like it was back at the Roadhouse, that same hard look glinting in his eyes that he'd had before he drove his fist into Dean's face.

"All right," he says with false cheer, sizing up the wall of fire arms and clapping his hands together. "Let's get to it."

* * *

><p>Thanks for reading, guys! Just so you know, we'll be taking the next two weeks off of posting for Christmas and New Years! Check back on January 11th for the next chapter! (And aren't you glad we didn't leave it on a cliffy? Because we definitely could've!)<p> 


	47. Chapter 47

And we're back! Hope you guys had a great holiday season. Enjoy the new chapter!

* * *

><p>Sam's halfway through taping up a chart of weather patterns from 2005 when his phone starts going off. He frowns around the pen in his mouth and debates answering it, knowing it could easily be Dad still trying to get hold of them. Then again, John seems a lot more interested in talking to Dean than Sam, so the odds of him just dialing up his demon-spawn youngest are probably somewhere in the neighborhood of slim to none, he thinks with a scowl. He juggles the tape and the free corners of the chart in one hand while he digs around in his pocket before picking up and spitting his pen onto the floor to answer.<p>

"Hello?"

"You forget how to use email, Winchester?" a familiar voice asks over the sound of pulsing classic rock.

"Ash," he answers, relieved. He pins the phone to his ear with one shoulder while he returns to taping up his dad's research. "Hey. Sorry, it's been so crazy, I didn't even think to check my inbox. Is everything all right?"

"Could be askin' you the same question, jefe," Ash says. "I got a whole wave of omen action 'round Frozen Head, then nada. Things okay over there?"

The question is so ridiculous after everything that has happened in the last few days that Sam has to suppress a laugh.

"Yeah," he tells Ash. "Yeah, just— Don't think you need to worry about keeping an eye on Tennessee anymore."

He can hear the sound of Ash's keyboard clicking away on the other end.

"Big Bad flew the coop on ya there, Sam-o?" he asks.

Sam huffs out a breath, crouching down to grab another piece of paper.

"That's one way of putting it."

Ash grunts in what Sam thinks may be sympathy.

"How about you?" he thinks to ask. "Everything all right on your end?"

Ash groans.

"Aw, it's World War Three here at the Roadhouse, man."

Sam grins at the put-upon tone.

"You need backup?"

"Negative, compadre," Ash tells him. "Stay away. Save yourselves. Lady folks've been in a right state."

Sam chuckles.

"Should you be telling me this?"

"Ah, definitely not," Ash says, but then adds: "Well, you didn't hear it from me, but Jo tried to sneak off yesterday morning. Had 'er bags packed and everything. 'Course Ellen's got ears like a goddamn Coonhound, caught her in the act, and the fightin' hasn't stopped since. It's worse than the Great Pushup Bra Debacle of '03."

Sam stifles another laugh.

"But enough about me," Ash dismisses. "What about you? You got another lead for me to sniff out on the demon front?"

"Nothing," Sam sighs. "We've got nothing. Not on the omen front, at least."

"That mean you've got something else?" Ash wants to know.

Sam opens his mouth to say "no." He pauses, glancing down at the map in his hand, the words "Fires, 1983" written across the top in his dad's messy scrawl.

"Maybe," he says instead. "It's… sensitive. This is a secure connection, right?"

"'Course," the other man answers in a tone that clearly means '_Who the hell do you take me for?_'

"Okay, but you have to keep this on the down low," Sam tells him. "You can't tell anybody about this, and I mean, _anybody_. Not even Ellen."

And especially not Dean, he thinks, who's almost certainly going to read him the Riot Act for doing this.

"Pain o'death," Ash swears easily. "What is it?"

"You said you made a program that can find those omens when they pop up, right?" Sam asks. After Ash makes an affirmative sound, he continues: "So can you edit the parameters to find them in the past, too?"

"Yeah," the other man confirms. "It'll take a while to get your answers, but it ain't hard to do."

"Good," Sam says, drawing in a tremulous breath. "There's more. I want you to compare those occurrences with something else."

"And that'd be..?"

"Births. Kids who were born places where the omens cropped up more than once, one of those times around their sixth month birthday."

He can almost hear Ash's incredulous stare through the phone.

"Okay, what the hell, Sam?"

"Look, I know it sounds strange, but just do it, okay?" Sam says. "And try to track down the kids' current whereabouts, too, if you can."

Ash is silent for a long moment.

"You wanna tell me what this is about?" he asks finally.

"I can't," Sam says apologetically. "Not yet, at least."

On the other end of the line, Ash lets out a deep sigh.

"You're gonna owe me _so much_ PBR for this it ain't even funny," he grumbles, "and you better bet your ass is tellin' me the whole story the next time you come 'round the Roadhouse."

"Fine," Sam agrees. "You got it. Thanks, Ash."

The other man grunts in answer.

"Anything else I should know?"

"I'm going to be one of the kids," Sam admits reluctantly. "My name comes up, you'll know you're on the right track."

"Yep," Ash sighs after another long pause, "you're gonna owe me _big time_."

Sam smiles.

"I know."

He hears the sound of other voices on the other end. Angry, female voices.

"That Ellen and Jo?"

"Uh huh," Ash confirms, "and if you don't mind, I'mma take the high road and pretend to be, ah, _mercifully unconscious_. I'll give you a call if I turn up anything."

"Thanks again, man," Sam says sincerely. "I mean it."

"Aw, it's not that big a deal," Ash dismisses with an audible shrug. "It's weird as hell, but you know. Whatever. I've heard weirder."

"Still," Sam tells him, "I really do appreciate this."

"Yeah, yeah," Ash says agreeably. "Adios, compadre."

"See you on the other side, Ash," Sam says before he hangs up, tucks the phone back into his pockets, and turns back to his charts.


	48. Chapter 48

Dean is being ridiculous.

His brother's never exactly made it a secret that research is his absolute least favorite part of being a hunter. Give Dean an unsolved homicide, a pissed-off spirit, or a rampaging werewolf, and he's pleased as punch. Ask him to do some simple cross-referencing, on the other hand, and you'd think Sam asked him to build a rocket ship to the freaking moon.

Of course, after about six hours of fruitless searching for _any_ solid references to the kind of demon deal they're searching for, Sam's nerves are getting pretty frayed, too. He's making glacial progress decoding John's notes and building up to a truly brutal headache in the process, and Dean's drumming fingers and jittering legs are rapidly becoming less 'mild annoyances' and more 'justifications for fratricide.'

"Anything?" his brother asks again, dropping Pastor Jim's copy of _De Praestigiis Daemondum_ back onto the bedside table.

"Still searching," Pastor Jim says mildly, displaying what Sam credits as Buddah levels of patience.

"Sam?" Dean prompts.

"Well, I think I've figured out how he's marking the patterns," Sam tells him, holding up a notebook of lined yellow paper. "I'm working on making a list of when the omens popped up so I can cross-check it with the fires. If Yellow Eyes was making deals, they _should_ show up a decade beforehand. If I can figure out the cases Dad nailed down and check the area ten years prior, that could confirm the deal theory for us."

It's slow as hell and frustrating as all get-out, but until Ash calls him with an update, it's all he's got. He can't find any sort of key where Dad has matched up the names with the events on his charts and maps or even a place that links them all to each other. From what Sam can tell, he'd used similar house fires as a jumping off point to figure out the rest of the omens, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to him to use those omens to dig up cases where the demon was present _without_ children involved.

Of course it didn't. He hadn't known about the deals. Hadn't known to look for the omens in the same place twice. Once for when the deal was struck and again when it came due.

He hadn't known. _Or he hadn't wanted to know__._

"Yeah," his brother answers without a trace of enthusiasm. "Great..."

'But you're not going to find anything,' is the unspoken conclusion.

Sam has to bite down on an angry retort. Dean's refusal to listen is rubbing him raw, because unlike Dean, Sam doesn't have the luxury of sticking his fingers in his ears and pretending all of this isn't happening. It is. It's happening. And it's happening _to him_.

It's _inside _of him.

Denial isn't an option.

"Hey," Pastor Jim breaks in. "Sam, I'm going to go pick up some groceries? Do you mind going with me?"

It's a familiar, incredibly domestic method of distraction, one Sam remembers from years spent hunched over summer reading books and entrance essays rather than treatises on demonic sacrifices and Dad's scrawled, half-coded ramblings.

Apparently his mounting irritation is more obvious than he thought.

"I still have a lot of work to do," Sam tries to object, but it sounds weak to his own ears. The idea of getting out of this room for an hour isn't exactly unappealing.

"It'll keep," Pastor Jim says. "You look like you could use some air."

"Great idea." Dean snaps his book closed. "Let's all go."

Pastor Jim looks apologetic.

"Sorry, Dean, but someone needs to be here to watch the Boeffels."

As if on cue, Melissa Boeffel starts wailing in the next room. Dean pulls a face.

"Yeah, but why's it gotta be _me?_"

"Because you touch yourself at night," Sam answers pithily and then winces, cutting his eyes to Pastor Jim who is very studiously ignoring them while he riffles through his wallet.

He grabs his keys and heads out of the door, but when Sam goes to follow him, Dean hooks him by the elbow.

"Not sure this is a good idea, Sammy," he says lowly.

Sam blinks.

"Going to the grocery store?"

"Going off alone," Dean gives him a hard stare. "Come on, Sam. You really think that's a good move right now?"

"Dude, again, it's _Pastor Jim_," Sam tells him emphatically. "If you still don't trust him, why are we even here?"

"It's not that," Dean says. "Well, not completely. It's who he could know, who knows him, who knows _we _know him…"

"Okay, okay. 'Be on the lookout for other hunters.'" Sam sinks down on the bed next to him. "I get it, alright? I'll be careful."

Dean squares his jaw, staring at him for a long moment.

"Don't take too long, all right?" He fishes around in his pocket and tosses Sam the keys. "And take the Impala. She's better stocked, and she's probably getting' lonely."

Sam doesn't point out that Jim's battered pick-up would be better for hauling groceries. Doesn't bring up how, if the Boeffel's make a run for it, the Impala's better set up for chasing them, for protecting them from whatever's out there waiting in the dark.

If this is all Dean can give him, all the protection he can offer, the only thing that's gonna ease his brother's mind, even a little, then Sam'll go along with it.

It might not help, but it won't hurt.

With Pastor Jim, just like with Dean or Dad, it's easy to fall back into patterns. At the supermarket, it takes the form of Pastor Jim reading off his list while Sam fans out to fetch eggs and milk and various vegetables and dump them into the cart. Just like when he and Dean were kids, Sam remembers fondly. The only thing missing is the part where they bug him about trying to cut down on their junk food. Of course, Pastor Jim seems content enough to grab the box of Ding Dongs without prodding this time.

"I think your brother deserves a treat after getting stuck with guard duty," he smiles. "Is there anything you want?"

"You really don't have to feed us," Sam says. "It's nice enough that you're letting us use your place. We'll probably need to go check into a motel soon, anyway."

"I've got an air mattress down in the panic room that you boys are welcome to," Pastor Jim tells him. "And don't be ridiculous. Just because you're a good two feet taller than me now doesn't mean I'm going to start starving you."

"At least let me pay for the groceries," Sam coaxes, relenting and grabbing a pack of yogurt with crunchy granola in the plastic tops. If Dean were here, he's give Sam merry hell for the fact that it's stocked between the kids' stuff that comes in favors like Cotton Candy and Fruit Punch and the stuff marketed to soccer moms who can't poop.

He's not here, though, and Jim would never say anything about Sam's snack choices, so he just grabs a jar of Sour Cream and Onion dip for Dean and follows Jim to the bread.

Pastor Jim makes a noncommittal noise as Sam renews his pleas to be allowed to chip in for food, turning the cart into the baked goods aisle with a rattle of metal and the squeal of tires on shiny linoleum.

"So, how are you doing?" he changes the subject as Sam grabs a loaf of wheat bread from the top shelf. "Really?"

"Honestly?" Sam grimaces. "I don't know. You seriously haven't found _anything_?"

Pastor Jim shakes his head.

"History, lore, everything I've got on demons or devils or deals made at the crossroads says you can't sell a soul that's not yours."

Sam tries to control his expression, he _does_, but he's always been about as good at that as Dean is at staying away from the skin mags in every truck stop and mini mart from here to the Mississippi.

"That's _good_ news, Sam," Jim reminds him. "Means maybe that demon you interrogated was lying. Maybe what Sarah told you was a fluke, a coincidence."

And yeah, he'd love to believe that. He really would, but—

"What if the soul hasn't been made yet?" Sam presses. "What if it's still a part of the mother?"

Pastor Jim sighs, shakes his head.

"All I can say is I can't find a mention of it. That doesn't mean it isn't possible, but I've already utilized every resource I have. I just don't know where else to look."

Sam hesitates.

He hesitates, because what he's thinking is monumentally stupid and suicidally reckless, even by their standards.

If any other hunter asked Sam to do this, he'd tell them they were crazy. If Dean asked Sam to do this, he'd burn all of his brother's porn and then take a hunting knife to the paint job on the Impala, just for good measure, just for the sheer awfulness, the blatant, reckless _stupidity_ of it all.

But they've still got next to nothing as far as real, concrete answers go. They can track weather patterns 'till their eyes bleed, question Sarah Boeffel and every mother like her until they're blue in the face, read Dad's Beautiful Minded research until they're seeing demonic signs in the Sunday crossword, and it won't get them any closer to knowing what the demons' master plan is.

But one thing will.

It will, and it's right there in front of them.

It's a really, really stupid idea – one for the record books even – but if they have even a hope of finding out the truth, shouldn't they take it?

"What if I said I did?" Sam ventures, not even believing that he - _of all people - _is suggesting this.

"All right, then," Pastor Jim says. "What do you propose we do?"

"That depends," Sam hedges, taking a look around the deserted parking lot as they load groceries into the backseat of the Impala. "Where's the nearest crossroads?"

Dean is going to kill him for this.


	49. Chapter 49

They drive for nearly an hour before they settle on a crossroads off the highway that's surrounded on all sides by what seems to be endless expanses of farmland. Doing it closer to the church where the Boeffel's were hiding out, they both agreed, would be way too dangerous. The family the demon was targeting last may be safely on holy ground for now, but it's best not to take any more risks than they already are. Sam wishes that he had the Colt with him, just in case, but he knows that Dean would never agree to this and getting it away from him without explaining why would be next to impossible.

"Okay," he says, putting the car into park. "Can you hand me the cigar box in the glove compartment?"

Sam sends a silent apology to Dean before he dumps his tangle of fake IDs onto the front seat of the Impala. He fishes around in the trunk, filling the box again with the ingredients needed for the ritual, while Pastor Jim uses one of their shovels to dig a hole in the center of the road and a can of spray paint to draw a large, complicated devil's trap around it. Sam ducks back into the car and drags the shoebox full of Dean's audiobook collection out from under the driver's seat. He digs through them until he finds a picture with slightly worn edges and "_Sammy, 2001_" written on the back.

He sets it inside the box, closes it tight, and paces over to put it into the ground. Pastor Jim covers the box with dirt, and they glance around expectantly.

Nothing happens.

"How long—?" Sam starts.

"Well, well, well," a low, sultry voice interrupts. "Sam Winchester. It must be my lucky day."

Their heads whip around. A tall, handsome man in a dark suit is standing there in the center of the crossroads, silhouetted by the setting sun. He's pale, with a tangle of curly, black hair and striking green eyes. His pink, plush lips tick up into a taunting, teasing smirk.

"Who's your friend?" he asks, raising one thin, dark eyebrow. "I do love a man of the cloth. Forbidden fruit, you know?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Sam can see Pastor Jim draw back, dart a hand to the gun at the small of his back.

It's useless - and pointless, as long as the thing is in the devil's trap - but Sam gets where Jim's coming from.

"That doesn't matter," Sam dismisses with more confidence than he feels, recapturing the demon's attention. "You're a crossroads demon."

It comes out sounding like a question, and the man's smirk widens. He blinks, and his eyes shift to blood-red.

"In the flesh," he purrs. "Well, kind of. Why? Not what you were expecting?"

Sam suddenly remembers that crossroads demons are meant to be attractive to the person who summons them, the ultimate enticement. He feels his face flush as he takes in the thing's green eyes. He looks at broad shoulders and full lips and that teasing, fuck-it-all grin, and he regrets, for the first time, bringing Pastor Jim along on this particular adventure.

Well, it's too late now.

"I have some questions for you," he pushes out through gritted teeth as he wills the flush from his face.

"Is that so?" the demon hums, his red eyes bleeding back into sharp, smirking green. "And what, exactly, makes you think I'm going to _answer_ those questions?"

Sam flicks his eyes downward. The demon follows his gaze to the devil's trap that he's standing inside.

"They did say you were smart," the demon breezes, unconcerned as a smile creeps onto his face. "So nice when the rumors are true."

Sam narrows his eyes.

"What rumors?"

The demon's grin widens, but he doesn't answer. The fact that it isn't nervous is making _Sam_ nervous. He wishes, again, for the Colt.

"So," the crossroad demon purrs, swaggering to the very edge of the trap, up to the point where the only thing separating him from Sam, the only thing between Sam's chest and the heat of the demon's stolen skin, is a thin line of road dust and spray paint. "You summoned me. You know how it works. Let's make a deal."

"No," Sam says, shaking his head, shoving away thoughts of tanned skin and full lips and scorching, sweltering heat. "No deal. You tell me what I want—"

"Or what? You're gonna _torture_ me?" the demon laughs, raising an eyebrow with a quick, confident grin. "'Cause, from what I hear, you're not such a big fan of the enhanced interrogation tactics."

"Or I'll exorcise you," Sam finishes tightly. "One way ticket back to Hell."

The demon blinks indolently, teasing smirk lingering at the corner of his mouth.

"You really think I'm going to fall for that?" He paces the inside of the circle, arms tucked behind his back. "If I tell you what you want, you're just going to exorcise me anyway. No way you're letting me walk out of here in this pretty little thing."

He's right. Sam's not going to leave another person's helpless, broken body in the hands of a demon. Not now, not ever. Not after Meg.

Sam's got nothing to offer – not anything he'd be willing to bargain away, at least – and if the demon won't talk, this whole thing was pointless. He exchanges glances with Pastor Jim and finds him thin-lipped and grim. Sam nods, opens his mouth, and begins to chant.

"_Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus_—"

"Hey, hey! Let's not get ahead of ourselves here!" the demon interrupts, his smirking, superior facade slipping with the first tremor, the very faintest curl of black smoke.

Sam pauses, raising an eyebrow. The demon smoothes a hand over his hair and settles back into affected calm.

"There might be _something_ you could offer," he suggests with a nonchalant shrug.

Sam exhales a laugh that's meant to mock the demon for its transparency, though he can't quite smother the undercurrent of relief.

"Yeah? And what's that?"

The demon flashes a row of gleaming white teeth, and Sam notices for the first time the faint, flecked sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of its nose.

"The same thing that made me step into your little devil's trap even though I could have just as easily turned tail and ran," it continues. "I am _loyal_."

Sam frowns, confused.

"Loyal? To who?" _To Yellow Eyes?_

"To _you_."

Sam stares. He can hear Pastor Jim's feet shift on the asphalt.

"What?" Sam asks incredulously, shoves down memories-but-not-memories, _visions_, of black smoke and burning flesh, the sharp, savory sting of sulfur in his lungs and fire against his face and the wet, sucking snap of bone beneath his feet as he strode through that gate, the forces of Hell behind him and all the world before him, shaking and shrieking and begging to be conquered as the skies scream and Heaven weeps.

_You're my favorite, Sam._

The demon draws a palm down his front, as if to smooth the lines out of his already immaculate suit.

"It's true you're not the biggest player on the field right now or the most powerful. Maybe the _cutest_—"

Sam glares.

"—and even _that's_ debatable," the demon grins. "But kid, have you got _promise_."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sam scoffs to hide the swoop of panic as he squashes down the thoughts, the memories, that surge to the surface.

The flayed-alive fire of every vision. The splintered wood of that wardrobe in Indiana, exploding like the shot that would have taken his brother from him. His Dad, white-faced and hurled across the room as if he was nothing, pinned like a bug for one horrible, hundred year heartbeat against the wall.

Something they had only ever seen Yellow Eyes do before.

The demon's pacing again. Circling, like it's a shark and Sam's hemorrhaging into the water, bleeding fear and black-tinged blood and whipping the thing into a frenzy, into a heated, half-mad need to spill that blood, taste it, splash it on the walls, black and red and white and for all the world to see, and this was a bad idea, _such a bad idea._

"Oh, I'll be happy to explain it," the demon purrs. "We just have to make a little bargain."

"Except you said it yourself," Sam snaps, slapping down fear and snatching up anger. "I don't have anything to leverage. I'm not letting you go. So what do you want out of me?"

"Something's coming," the demon tells him in a teasing, confiding whisper. "Something huge. The Big Guy's looking for a leader, and everybody's just hanging on, wondering who this awesome, unholy champion's gonna be. But me?"

Sam swallows thickly, dread twisting knots in his stomach, and he knows what comes next, _knows_ and doesn't want to hear it, can't help but hear it—

"I'm betting on _you_, Sammy."

Sam knows he looks pale-faced and horrified, the memories of Yellow Eyes' vision crashing down on him like a tidal wave anew, and Sam can practically see this one in the crowd, feel him, all red eyes and kitten purrs and sharp, shark-toothed smiles at his back, at his elbow, vying with Yellow Eyes for a place at Sam's right hand. He must shudder, shake, give himself away somehow, because Pastor Jim puts a hand on his arm, as if to steady him, and the demon's stolen green eyes glitter triumphantly.

And he doesn't know why it should be any different hearing it from this demon, not when he's heard it before from Yellow Eyes, from The Big Guy himself, but still it's got Sam battling a fresh wave of fear, of panic, swallowing a high, hysterical laugh that, of all the demons in all the pits of all the circles of hell, he had the- Luck? Stupidity? Audacity?- to summon one who was pulling for him.

"So here's the deal. I tell you anything I know," the crossroads demon smirks. "Be your man on the inside. Help you _however_ I can. In exchange, I'm just asking you to… remember me."

"Remember you," Sam scoffs. "That's it?"

"That's it," he purrs. "I'm in _sales_, Sam. There's a _lot_ of room for upward mobility, especially if you've got friends in high places. So when you finally do decide to change your alignment—"

Sam opens his mouth to protest.

"_If_," the demon corrects with a sly smile, raising his palms in mocking surrender. "—_if_ you decide to man up and follow your destiny? I want you to remember who was there for you in the beginning. I want to be there by your side when you throw open those gates and we take what we were always meant to have."

Sam shakes his head emphatically.

"I'm not— I will send every single one of you bastards back to Hell before I do that," he snaps. "I would rather _die_."

"Then what've you got to lose?" the demon tosses back with an easy shrug. "Take the deal. You get free information, and I get a fast-pass back to the fiery pit. Sounds like a win-win to me."

"Sam," Pastor Jim says in a warning tone, and Sam holds up a hand to silence him.

"So this is all conditional," he confirms. "If I don't lead this Hell army—"

"—you don't owe me a thing!" the demon finishes, grinning. "Cross my smoky, black heart. And if I'm betting on the wrong horse here? Well, let's just say, I won't exactly be in a position to be collecting on any debts anyway."

Sam takes a breath.

God, Dean is going to _kill_ him.

"Fine," he grinds out.

"Sam!" Pastor Jim exclaims.

"_Great_." The demon's smile is all teeth. He takes a step closer, tilting his chin up. "What do you say we seal this with a kiss?

Sam takes a step back.

"Forget about it," he scoffs, willing away the fire in his cheeks when he hears Pastor Jim shift uncomfortably behind him.

The demon's triumphant expression falters slightly.

"Then we don't have a contract," it says with a tight smile.

"I know," Sam replies, answering with a smirk of his own, "but believe me, I've got a good memory. If I do end up doing whatever it is you _think_ I'm gonna do? I won't need a deal to remind me who helped me. Or who chose _not_ to."

He watches the demon's eyes flick to the side, a crease forming between his brows marring the smarming, superior mask of his host's handsome face.

"Think of all that potential you mentioned. All that power. All that purpose," Sam continues, a sharp edge cutting into his smirk. "And now think of it all turned against _you_."

The demon stares at him, mouth fixed in a tight, bloodless line.

"My way is the new world order?" Sam finishes, voice all sharp steel and cold command. No wavering, no insecurity, not if this is going to work. "Then we do this _my way_."

The demon just stares at him for a heartbeat, silent, calculating, gears whirling away amidst the smoke behind those glittering green eyes. And then his face clears, settles back that satisfied, seductive smile.

"What do you want to know?" he purrs, all soft, smirking solicitude.

Sam doesn't have time to feel triumphant. He steels himself.

"Yellow Eyes' trick with the demon blood," he starts. "It does have something to do with the mothers, doesn't it?"

"It does," the demon answers easily.

"So, he's making deals," Sam says, dreading the answer but refusing to let that show. "Their future kids' souls for whatever it is they want?"

The demon shakes its head.

"Not their souls. Just… permission."

"Permission?" Sam repeats dubiously.

"Mmhmm," the demon confirms with a smirk. "Turns out all those stories about Hell and red tape? Not so far off the mark. Trust me, I'd know."

Sam furrows his brow, turning it over in his head.

"So they have to agree to let him give their kids demon's blood?"

"Something like that," the demon answers, and when Sam glares, he shrugs. "I'm not exactly in the inner circle, here. I'm just telling you what I've heard."

Sam frowns thoughtfully.

"So you're saying Yellow Eyes _doesn't_ have a claim on my soul?"

"Not in the legally binding sense, at least," the demon hedges. "I'd know if he did. As for the mechanics of it all? Well, hate to admit it, but that's a little above my pay grade."

"Then what am I, really?" Sam demands. "Do you know that? What am I supposed to turn into? Am I supposed to become a demon?"

"Oh, that is the million dollar question," the demon hums. "Not a demon, no. Something different. Maybe even something _more_. You're a whole new breed, Sam. What you'll become? What you'll be able to do? It's uncharted territory. That's half the fun."

He catches Sam's expression.

"Well," he concedes cheerfully, "maybe not for _you_."

Sam turns it all over in his mind, trying to process the information, following the paths to see where it leads.

"Anything else I can do for you?" the demon purrs.

And oh, yes, there is.

"Tell me Yellow Eyes' name," Sam orders. "His _real_ name."

The demon chuckles.

"Sorry," it says, "I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that."

"You said you'd tell me anything," Sam reminds him with a scowl.

"Yes, that was the _deal_, wasn't it?" the demon answers. "Give us a kiss, then. I'll be more than happy to accommodate."

Sam huffs, refusing to dignify that with an answer.

"Believe me, there's no love lost between that bastard and me," the demon continues, "but I've broken about a dozen gag orders already, and all for free. _Wars_ have been fought over that name."

"Fine," Sam says tightly.

"Well, then," the demon says pleasantly. "If that's all, I guess I'll be on my way."

"Wait," Sam clenches his fists as his sides until his knuckles go pale, glancing at Pastor Jim out of the corner of his eye. "I want to know… You said I showed promise, before. When? What is it your crowd's seen me do that's got them talking so much?"

The demon smirks broadly.

"Well, I'll admit I didn't think you were much right outta the gate, but after Louisiana?" it begins, and the bottom drops right out of Sam's stomach. "We hadn't seen a blood rite like that since the _Middle Ages_. I mean, the fasting, the meditation, the ritual sacrifice and dismemberment? Sure, a motel bed isn't your usual choice for a black altar, but still. It was old school. _Very_ sexy."

Sam can feel himself go pale, eyes widening as the horror rises.

"Blood rite," he repeats hollowly, remembering Dean's almost-nonexistent pulse, his ice-white skin, the sheer volume of blood lost...

"And the outpouring of power that it takes to just _snatch someone_ from the brink like that? No prep? No training? No rule book? Talk about setting yourself apart from the pack," the demon gushes. "If you ask me, the fact that you didn't know what you were doing just makes it _more_ impressive. I mean, Hell, if that's the kind of thing you can do by _accident_, what can you do when you _really_ set your mind to it?"

The demon tucks his hands into his pockets, cocking his head to the side with a sly smile as Sam just nods, swallows hard.

"Anything else, boss?" he asks with a grin, taking in Sam's shell-shocked face and Jim, stiff and silent at his side.

"No," Sam mumbles distantly. "No, that's it. Pastor Jim, can you?"

The preacher nods. He starts chanting the exorcism, and the demon's face contorts in agony, body jerking. The earth around them rumbles.

"One more thing," Sam remembers, calling out over the sound of whipping wind and shattering asphalt. "Your name! What if I need to call you again?"

The demon laughs.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," he chuckles, even as he fights off another wave. "Me? I'll be watching. We'll _all_ be watching."

He steels himself against another full-body shudder, puts a hand on his heaving chest, and bends his waist into a deep bow.

_"All hail the Boy King,"_ the demon rasps, his pained, twitching face still fixed in that Cheshire grin, and then a funnel of smoke pours out of the his mouth and into the sky with an unholy shriek.

An unholy shriek that still, somehow, manages to sound like laughter.


	50. Chapter 50

The familiar purr of the Impala pulling up the drive sends Dean barreling out the door and onto the lawn.

His heart clenches tight in his chest, and when he comes around the corner and sees Sam standing on the driver's side, he's actually dizzy with relief. He grabs Sam into a tight hug, takes a minute to take in the feeling of warm, safe, brother, before he draws back and nails Sam in the shoulder with all of his strength.

"What the hell, Sam?!" he demands.

His brother actually has the gall to look startled, stumbling backwards and rubbing at his bruised arm with wide eyes and a wounded look on his stupid, puppy face.

"Just going to the grocery store, huh?" Dean fumes. "You were gone for three goddamn _hours_! Do you have any idea how out of my mind I was going?"

"Dean," Pastor Jim starts to say.

"Don't!" Dean growls, rounding on him. "Just _don't_."

"We've got the groceries, Pastor Jim," Sam says over Dean's shoulder. "If you wanna—"

"No, we don't got the groceries," Dean snaps, fisting a hand in Sam's jacket and marching him towards the church. "Jim's got the groceries. We gotta talk."

"What—?" Sam sputters as Dean steers him through the empty pews of the church and towards the panic room.

"You don't want me near a trunk full of weapons right now, Sammy," Dean growls, flinging open the panic room door. "You really don't."

"We went out for groceries!" Sam cries, flinging his arms up.

"You left your phone," Dean bites out, glaring daggers at his brother under the harsh fluorescents of the panic room.

"And yet somehow," Sam snipes, "the world continued to turn."

"You left your phone," Dean repeats through his teeth, "and Ash called. Low level demon activity kicked up about an hour ago a few miles from here."

Sam has nothing to say to that.

"Groceries, huh Sammy?" Dean gravels.

Sam's guilty look says it all. Dean slams a fist into the metal grating of the emptied gun racks lining the panic room, swallowing the curses and fighting down the rage, because it's that or do something stupid. It's that or vent the fury and fear and frustration of the last hour and a half, every second spent imagining Sam broken and bleeding, Sam black eyed and laughing, Sam with that monster's awful, evil yellow eyes, the bastard smirking out of his baby brother's face as Dean's world burns up and falls away into cinder and ash and so much filthy, choking, churning black smoke.

"We needed to know, Dean!" Sam insists, like he's right, like he's getting away with pulling this kind of shit when they're supposed to work together, when they're supposed to be a _team_.

"So what, havin' Dad and Yellow Eyes on our ass isn't bad enough?" Dean demands. "Now you gotta go and start _lookin_' for trouble?!"

"I was fine, Dean," Sam argues. "I had backup, I laid down a devil's trap-"

"'Cause those are fuckin' foolproof," Dean snaps.

Sam doesn't answer, and Dean knows he's remembering Tennessee, where a needle-thin trickle of water had been all it took to bring everything crashing down around their ears.

"You're so smart? You got it all planned out?" he presses, sharp and vicious, in Sam's space and pushing every damn button he can, because Sam _did_ plan this. He planned to bench Dean and light out and put his ass on the line, and that? This? It is _not_ okay. "Tell me one thing: Where's your fucking anti-possession charm?"

"What?" Sam scoffs, his hand snapping to his collar. "It's right—"

Dean watches the high, angry flush drain from his face as his hand meets bare, tanned skin, sees the moment Sam remembers ripping the thing off his neck in the Boeffel's basement and demanding to be possessed, demanding that if anyone was going to be tortured for Yellow Eyes' sins, it should be him.

Ripping it off and never putting it back on.

"Yeah," Dean snaps with a tight, harsh nod. "Yeah, you had it all planned out, didn'tcha, Sammy? Park my ass here to babysit the civvies and dial up Hell for a big, damn showdown. No plan, no protection, no point in telling poor, dumb Dean-o, right? I'm just here to get the food and fix the damn car!"

"It wasn't like that, Dean!" Sam protests.

"Then what was it like?" Dean throws back. "Tell me, Sam, 'cause I got no damn idea! What the hell were you thinking?!"

"I was thinking I'd get some goddamn answers for once!" Sam explodes. "I was thinking that instead of staring at Dad's stacks of crazy or waiting for Ash to track the psychic kids down or scaring that family in there into making a break for the state line and getting themselves killed, we could stop running for once! Turn around and face this head on!"

"Oh, awesome," Dean says sarcastically, "and how'd that work out for you?!"

"Great, Dean," Sam flings back. "It worked out pretty goddamn great!"

"I—" Dean starts, hot and angry, then stops, caught off guard as what Sam said sinks in. "Seriously?"

"Yeah!" Sam shoves a hand through his hair with a frustrated, angry half-shrug. "Well, no... Kinda?"

"So you scared me half to death for a 'kinda,'" Dean grumbles, throwing his hands up as the frustration simmers. "Awesome. That's just awesome. What the hell did you do, anyway?"

"Well, the summoning book was back here," Sam shrugs, "so I had to call up a crossroads—"

"You called up a crossroads demon?!" Dean sputters incredulously, his anger washed away in huge rush of cold, sharp fear. Suddenly, standing, moving, _breathing_ gets hard. His heartbeat ratchets up, the air punched out of his lungs with every too-quick breath because they've done the research, read the lore, know all about the deals, the limits. Sam could have— They could have— He could be going—

"I didn't make a deal," Sam cuts him off, drags him back from hot, spiraling panic with a quick shake of his head. "He wanted to, but I—"

Sam breaks off, mouth tight, fists clenched.

"What?" Dean demands.

He's not sure he wants to know what's got his brother's eyes dark, his shoulder slumped, but he has to. He's gotta know.

"Sammy, what'd you do?" he presses, ice in his veins and the bottom gone from his stomach and scared, so scared of the answer that's coming. 'Cause they know the stakes now, know what you can barter away with a couple of words in the dark. Know that these black eyed bastards are out for blood and they play for keeps.

"I got lucky," Sam admits bitterly, slumping to sit on the narrow air mattress on the floor of the panic room, back against the cabinets and knees damn near up to his chin. "Summoned a…"

He pauses, his mouth twisting in disgust.

"A what?" Dean asks, coming down to sit beside him, shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee on the mattress, guarding one another against the chill. He wants to reach out, get a hand on Sammy, chase away the cold that lingers, licks at him with warm skin and soft, skewed brown curls, but he knows just by lookin' he'd only get shrugged off.

"A _fan_," Sam bites out, sharp and clipped.

"You're shittin' me," Dean gapes.

"Oh, I shit you not."

"Sammy," Dean starts, but Sam doesn't let him get that far.

"Apparently," Sam cuts him off, loud and hard and just on this side of hysteria, "I've already got weight to throw around downstairs. The Boy King in the flesh."

"Sam," Dean tries again, but apparently the floodgates are open, because his brother just plows right over him.

"Good news is I've got a soul, whatever _that's_ worth," Sam continues, voice dipping, spiraling, sad and sour, and doesn't Dean just feel like shit for comin' down on the kid earlier, because _Jesus Christ_. "Bad news is what Yellow Eyes did with the blood? He had to get the go-ahead for."

"That demon coulda been—" Dean starts, refusing to let Sam go down that road without argument.

"He wasn't lying," Sam bites out, cutting him off again. "We keep hearing it, Dean. Whatever I am, they couldn't have made me without some sort of- of _permission_."

"...Whatever you are?" Dean leads, leaning into Sam's shoulder, his instant, instinctual defense of Mom taking a backseat to the lost, lonely note in Sammy's voice.

"They don't even know," Sam mutters mournfully, slumping into him. "No one does. I'm a whole new breed of freak, Dean."

"No you're not." It's out of Dean's mouth without him even having to think about it, because whatever they did to his brother, whatever they added into the mix when he was little, he was Dean's first. Will always be Dean's first. Blood? Boy Kings? Some pissant demon not knowing his ass from his elbow? It doesn't change that. _Nothing_ changes that.

"How can you even say that?" Sam demands, voice rising. "With everything we know? Everything we've been told?"

"Because they're wrong."

"Somewhere, right now, _in_ _Hell_," Sam bites out, "there are demons betting on how I am going to turn evil, open the gates between our world and theirs, and end life on Earth as we know it. Do you know what _else_ I learned tonight, Dean? What other fun little tidbits he had for me? Turns out, I basically _raised you from the dead_ back in Covington. So you really wanna try and sell me on the 'You're no freak, Sammy' line? You really wanna keep pushin' that bull? Really?"

"Now you're just being overdramatic." Dean scoffs.

"No, I'm not," Sam flings back at him. "All this talk about me downstairs? My big evil rep as it stands? Built on me using my demonic goddamn blood to drag you back from the brink of death in an unconscious and entirely improvised blood rite."

"_What__?!_"

"I didn't eat. Didn't sleep. Killed a monster and chopped it up," Sam explains. "Then I bled for you. _Into_ you. While thinking about nothing _but_ you. Apparently that builds serious mojo."

He shoves his hands through his hair and lets his head drop back against the cabinet with a cold, metallic 'thunk.'

"All that plus my blood?" he continues. "The demon said he hadn't seen so much raw power since the Middle Ages."

That... Well. Putting it like that definitely adds an eerie-as-fuck cherry to the top of the already fucked-up sundae that was that night, but it doesn't change anything. Not really. Except-

Except all this came from a crossroads demon, the kind that can pluck your type outta thin air. That show up as a walkin', talkin' fantasy, just to give them that extra edge when they go for the 'yes.'

"He?" Dean repeats, smirk flickering at the corner of his mouth.

"Yes, _he_," Sam huffs bitchily, eyes rolling. "Dean, I tell you I'm a human-demon hybrid who pretty much raised you from the dead, and you're losing it over the fact that my crossroads demon was a dude?"

"Did Pastor Jim see?" Dean presses, smirk spreading to a full-blown grin at the flush that creeps up Sam's neck.

"Yes, he— Goddamnit, Dean, focus!" Sam snaps.

"Why?" Dean laughs. "This is hilarious. You snuck off, and Minister McFeeley got a crash course in you liking dick. It's like instant karma!"

"Seriously?!" Sam demands, his voice climbing. "I could have- you- you could be—"

"But I'm not," Dean tells him, the laughter draining away as he finally gets that hand up on Sam's neck, the lingering chill in his fingers chased away by warm Sam skin and messy, baby-fine curls. "I'm fine, you're fine, and hey, bonus, now we know Mom didn't sell your soul to Satan. I'd say things are looking up."

"No, no, they're not looking up!" Sam shakes him off, shoots up from the mattress to pace the tiny space of the panic room restlessly as Dean rises, follows him with his eyes. "They're not looking up, because I'm evil and supposed to take over the world, and whatever's wrong with me I used on you. Whatever they did to me, I- fuck, _I did it to you_."

He keeps pacing, shoves his hands through his hair and then stops in front of Dean, his eyes huge and sad.

"Jesus Christ, I'm sorry, Dean," Sam apologizes, and _what the actual fuck_? "I'm sorry, so sorry. Whatever I did, whatever I—"

"Yeah, no," Dean cuts him off sharply.

"What?" Sam asks faintly, lost, eyes going hopeless and hollow in a heartbeat.

"I'm not accepting a fucking apology for you savin' my damn life," Dean snaps, hard and unrelenting.

"But Dean, I—" Sam argues, but Dean cuts him right off, because Sammy's had the fucking talking stick, and he's used it to say a lot of stupid, fucked-up shit. Shit that needs to be straightened out right the fuck now.

"I'm not hearin' it." Dean shakes his head, mouth tight, not giving Sam an inch. "Not now. Not after eight months and change of listening to how your little stitch-n-switch was the only damn option for keeping me walkin' and talkin'. Not after enjoying _not dying horribly in a basement_ for the better part of a year."

"Dean, you're not looking at the facts," Sam presses.

"Well, neither are you!" Dean flings at him, stepping into his little brother's space, and tired, so tired of being the only one in their lives, Sam included, who believes that this kid is anything other than the goddamn devil.

"Excuse me?" Sam sputters, taken aback.

"You notice me goin' all satanic on you, Sammy?" Dean demands, arms flinging wide and fingers nearly brushing the empty gun racks lining the walls.

"What?"

"Am I movin' shit with my mind or seein' the damn future in my freaking cornflakes?"

"Dean," Sam sighs, rubbing at his temples, like _Dean's_ being the unreasonable one here, which is ri-goddamn-diculous.

"Am I bendin' over the fuck backwards to kiss your ass every second of the damn day like some weird zombie bitch boy?" Dean presses, shoves, up close and eyes flashing, refusing to be dismissed, to be ignored. Not this time. Not anymore. "Am I doing anything monstery or demony that we need to be fucking worried about?"

"No, but—"

"Then why are you fucking worrying about it?" Dang practically shouts, voice echoing and rebounding in the tiny, cramped room. "So I got a couple pints of your blood in me. So back-alley transfusions and creepy-ass blood rituals have shit in common. Big damn deal. If somethin' bad was gonna happen, we'd have seen it by now, so goddammit, just _let it__go_!"

"Yeah, I'll do that!" Sam snaps, cutting Dean off with a poisonous glare as he swells with anger, looms over him with height and heat and barely leashed rage. "We'll just ignore the fact that I can raise the goddamn dead! That I as good as poisoned you to do it!"

"You're not _poison_," Dean growls.

"I could be! I could be, and we're just ignoring it!" Sam rants. "Just like we're ignoring my powers and just like we're ignoring the fact that Dad's probably got every hunter in the Midwest after us. Just like we're ignoring the fact that before either of us was born, Mom made a deal with a fucking demon!"

"Sam," Dean warns, hard and tight and so, so not in the mood for this right now. Not this, not this on top of everything else.

"We know she did, Dean!" Sam shouts. "Maybe it wasn't for my soul, but it was for something! She made a deal! She made a deal, and you—!"

Dean's fist snaps out, hard and heavy in a right hook, his weight, his years of knowing, just _knowing_ in his heart that his mom was _good_, deep, down-to-the-bone good, sending Sammy crashing back against the empty racks of the panic room, metal grating clattering.

He spins on his heel and stalks up the stairs and out into the church before Sam can pick himself up, the door slamming shut behind him with a steely, deafening _bang _that echoes through the empty sanctuary like a shot.


	51. Chapter 51

Dean's down the church drive and storming along the shoulder of the dusty highway before the stinging in his knuckles registers.

He stomps through at least another mile of dust and gravel before he realizes he has no idea where he's going. He doesn't know if he's walking it off or running away or just getting out until the noise in his head dies down. It takes another mile for him to answer that, a second for him to turn around, and the entire walk back to stomach the thought of what comes next. The next logical step.

Researching Mom.

Prying apart her life just like they've picked apart the lives of a hundred civilians, dragging everything out into the painful, unforgiving light of day and cutting it to the bone, slicing and dicing until they find the lie, until they see smoke and smell sulfur and destroy forever all that Dean has left of a life before fear and fire. Salting and burning soft smiles and the smell of pie baking, dousing a voice humming 'Yesterday' in lighter fluid and watching warm arms and soft curls go up in smoke. Putting a bullet to his past to save Sammy's future.

Talk about deals with the devil.

The church is deserted when Dean gets back. The only light inside comes from the dim, distorted glow of the floodlights outside the chapel, sneaking into the sanctuary in slices and shades of sleeping stained glass as Dean paces down the long, lonely aisle to the steps of the panic room.

His hand is on the knob before it occurs to him that Sam might have locked him out.

Might not be in there at all.

It's a free country. He had the keys to the Impala and a long while to decide Dean wasn't worth the trouble of waiting out. He might be in the next state for all Dean knows, after Dad or Mom or the devil himself.

Dean turns the knob, shoulders open the door before he can decide which of those would be worse. The pit of his stomach drops as he sees the dark room, pitch black save for the narrow slice of dim, hazy light filtering over Dean's shoulder. There's no Sammy waiting to bitch him out for leaving, to deck him one for sucker punching him in the middle of a fight. No brother waiting to argue his case or call Dean an emotionally constipated moron.

No one.

Nothing.

And then there's a soft, sleepy shifting from the floor, and Dean's heart starts beating again. His heart beats and his breathing resumes, and he looks down through the dark and sees Sam tangled in blankets and hogging the better pillow but safe and alive and _here_ on the air mattress in the corner.

And that's... that's enough for Dean, at least for tonight.

He's tired. Tired and sore, and his knuckles are stinging. Sam's got his back to him, tight and tense in sleep like he almost never is, and Dean sharply, suddenly wants to be unconscious, dead to the world and wrapped up in _warm_ and _safe_ and _brother_ like no one's business, and if Sam wakes up in the middle of the night? Breaks Dean's nose in the name of payback while he's drooling on his pillow?

Well, it's not like the kid hasn't more than earned a free shot.

Maybe more than one.

On the strength of that, Dean shucks off his jacket and boots, dropping onto the least Sam-occupied slice of the air mattress. It's awkward as hell, and more of him is on cold concrete than barely-room-temperature polystyrene, but before the chill can really start to seep in and take Dean's night from 'uncomfortable' to 'miserable,' Sam shifts, scooting over to give Dean more room.

Which means he's awake.

And Dean is _fucked_.

He's fucked because he doesn't have it in him right now. He _doesn't_. He's tired of fighting and arguing, and Sam doesn't back down from this shit, not when he has a point, not when he knows he's right, and Dean?

He's already had to give up Mom tonight.

He just doesn't have anything else in him to give.

Not now. Not yet.

The silence stretches out, heavy and pregnant with everything they're not saying as they lie in the dark, broken only by their breathing, echoing loud and uncomfortable in the air of the panic room. Every now and then, a shift lines up with an inhale, weights and measures sending shoulder against neck, back against back, heel against calf, a lick of heat crossing the half-inch between them that might as well be a mile before the breath leaves, the shift corrects, the gulf of cold air and squashy mattress between them swallowing it all into space and silence, thick and uncomfortable as it sinks in, weighs down.

Dean can feel Sam wanting to shatter it, can feel the urge to speak rise up and get swallowed down again and again as they lie awake, alone and together all at the same time.

His eyes go to the door, and he wonders if leaving, running before Sam can say whatever's so bad that he can't even get it out when they're alone in the dark behind a foot of salted iron and steel, would make things better or worse.

But Sam, always the better of the two of them, finds his spine first, breaks their silence in a quiet, careful voice.

"Good people do bad things for reasons," he starts, not turning, not moving, not naming names or pointing fingers or starting another fight. "Doesn't mean they aren't good people. Just means that there's something in their lives so important, they're willing to ignore that for a while."

Sam's giving him this. Is giving him this when Dean doesn't have anything left in himself to give.

It's not winning or losing. It's not either of them admitting anything. It only barely qualifies as meeting in the middle. But it's enough.

"We'll start looking into Mom in the morning," Dean answers with a heavy sigh, falling back to the heat of his brother behind him.

"Dean," Sam begins, and he can feel his brother move against him, practically see Sam craning his neck over his shoulder, aiming that puppy dog look at Dean through the dark.

"Not tonight, Sammy," he mumbles against his pillow, eyes shut and hands clenched tight in the thin, pilling blankets.

"I can look on my own, if you want," Sam offers quietly, head going back to his own pillow. "All this crap..."

Dean feels the shudder, the uncomfortable shift of Sammy's shoulders against his own.

"I- I don't really want to be in the same room with me, either," he murmurs into the dark.

"Sam," Dean sighs, digging his head into the pillow hard to keep from rolling over.

"It's okay. I get it."

"No, you don't." Dean says, sharper than he meant to. "The Mom thing and the you thing- they're not the same."

"How—"

"You keep askin' me how, Sammy," he cuts him off. "How and why, how and why. How can I be okay that you're psychic? Why doesn't the demon blood thing bother me? How can I know you won't wipe out the world? Why am I not loading up on mojo in case you go all Evil Dead on the next cemetery you come across?"

He breathes in to the dark, empty room in front of him, against the warm, solid wall of Sam behind him.

"My answer... Sammy, it's the same for all of it. It's the same, 'cause you're the same."

And he is. Demon blood or no, psychic mojo or no, world-ending hell-destiny or no, pissed as all get out or loose and easy, laughing at the dumbest of Dean's dumb jokes, Sam is still Sam. Still the same snot-nosed brat Dean's been looking after his whole life, his one job, since before he can remember, since Sammy was just a bump beneath blonde curls and warm arms, a promise, a bedtime story, a brand new brother, his to look out for and protect.

His.

"Listen, I told you before," he repeats. "None of this crap matters. You're my brother, nothing changes that._Nothing_."

"There's gotta be a line, Dean," Sam insists from behind him, voice wavering and more than a little afraid as he breathes out into his own slice of darkness.

"Maybe there should be. Don't mean there is," Dean murmurs, not turning, not rolling over, but not going anywhere.

Not now. Not ever.


	52. Chapter 52

Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed last chapter! We read and appreciated every one. You guys are what keeps us going week after week. Thanks for reading!

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><p>Dean isn't sure he sleeps at all that night, and if he does, it's in short, fleeting bursts, dreamless lapses in time that only leave him more exhausted than before. He and Sam form an uneasy balance on the too-small air mattress. Every time his brother shifts, Dean is sent rocking back and forth, bouncing up and down with every toss and turn until he finally rolls over and tucks himself tight up against Sam's back, throwing an arm over his chest to keep him still. It does fuck-all for Dean's sleep. Not even the long, comforting line of brother against him is able to drown out the thoughts shifting and screaming through his head, but Sammy calms down, settles into the smooth, gentle softness of sleep against him, which is what's really important.<p>

By the time sun begins to filter in through the barred windows, the mattress is half deflated. Sam's ice cold toes are tucked up under his calves, and Dean feels worse than he did the night before, feels exhausted, his nerves frayed thin. Awake too long and thinking too much and just needing to get out, get some air, some room to breathe.

He clamors over Sam, wincing as his bare feet touch the chilly cement floor, and starts tugging on his jeans. Sam doesn't wake up, just rolls over into the depressed center of the mattress, his nose wrinkling slightly at the loss of his human heater. He tucks his legs into his body, draws the blanket tighter around himself, and then relaxes again. When Dean closes the door behind himself, Sam is snoring lightly, his face mushed into Dean's pillow and his hair going every which way.

Dean pads up the stairs and down the hallway. He opens the door to the parsonage as quietly as he can, not wanting to wake up the youngest Boeffel. He's not exactly surprised to find Pastor Jim in the kitchen in spite of the early hour. The man always has risen with the goddamn sun. As a teenager, Dean had gotten used to falling asleep to the sound of the kitchen floorboards creaking and the smell of brewing coffee.

"Good morning." Pastor Jim waves a spatula in greeting from his spot in front of the stove. "Do you want pancakes?"

Dean grins.

"You even need to ask?"

He sits down heavily in one of the chairs around the kitchen table, steeling his jaw against a yawn.

"You're up early," Pastor Jim comments without turning to look at him. Dean watches his elbows work from behind as he drops a pancake onto a plate on the counter and pours more batter into the pan. "Or should I say you're up late?"

Dean chuckles wryly.

"Yeah, you got me," he replies, "but in my defense, I did try."

Pastor Jim flips the pancake he's cooking, and it lands with a hearty sizzle.

"Yes, I'm afraid I haven't been sleeping well, either."

Dean grunts, rolling his shoulders.

"How about your brother?" Pastor Jim asks. "Is he up yet?"

"Nah, he's still sawin' logs downstairs," Dean tells him. "At least one of us is getting some shut-eye, I guess."

"No more dreams, then?" Pastor Jim asks, even though it's obvious that what he really means is _'No more visions?'_

"Not so far."

Pastor Jim spoons another thick glop of batter into the pan.

"That's good."

In a few minutes, he sets down a stack fresh, fluffy pancakes on the table, along with a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's that Dean immediately upends onto his plate, not stopping until his food is swimming in a half-inch of the stuff and the poor little lady is drained nearly dry.

"Want anything to drink with your syrup?" Pastor Jim asks dryly.

"How 'bout a beer?" Dean jokes around a mouthful of delicious, sticky-sweet breakfast.

"No drinking before noon," Pastor Jim admonishes, amusement twinkling in his eyes.

"Unless it's wine, and even then, only the sacramental stuff." Dean finishes. "Yeah, yeah. And what breakfast drink _does_ the church approve of?"

"Well, I know that orange juice is completely forbidden," Pastor Jim says seriously, "but I always have had a rebellious spirit, so I think maybe I can swing that."

He plops a full glass next to Dean's plate and sits down across from him, digging into his own food with a knife and fork.

"You two heading out this morning or are you going be sticking around for lunch?"

"Well," Dean starts, spewing traces of syrup and pancake before he swallows thickly, "Guess that depends on how long Sam's out. Figure we'll take off as soon as he's up and ready."

He doesn't say it aloud, but he wants Sam to get as much sleep here as he can. It's the first time his brother has had any real rest in more days than Dean cares to count. Maybe it's because he's just plain exhausted or maybe it's because he's had some time off from Dad. Maybe it's just that he feels comfortable here. Dean doesn't know, but he'll take what he can get.

"Well, I'm going to the post office in a little while," Pastor Jim says, taking a gulp of coffee. "Want to come with? I know the house isn't exactly rife with entertainment."

"Sure," Dean answers with a shrug. "Why not?"

His mind flashes to Sam then, asleep in the room downstairs, and he momentarily regrets the easy agreement. But it's only going to be for a half hour or so, and Sam was right when he said it last night: He's as safe in this church, in that room, as he has been anywhere in their lives.

Plus, it's not like Dean's going off on some kind of random demon-summoning field trip. That would just be _stupid_.

"By the way, Dean, I haven't gotten a chance to apologize yet for last night," Pastor Jim tells him after they've dump their dishes in the sink and headed out across the church parking lot, as if he's somehow picked up on Dean's bitter train of thought.

"Well, I guess it wasn't _really_ your fault," Dean dismisses grudgingly, swinging open the door of the preacher's old grey Toyota and sliding into the passenger's seat. "I know how Sammy is once he's got his mind set on something. It's like trying to reason with a goddamn mule."

"Your brother's not the only one to blame, though," the other man says, turning the key in the ignition. "I was perfectly willing to go along with the idea."

"Yeah, why is that, anyway?" Dean wonders, rubbing at his tired eyes. "No offense, but you usually work smarter than that, don't you?"

Pastor Jim squints against the sunrise as he flicks the blinkers and turns the car onto the deserted highway.

"I'd like to think so," he answers, "but the search for truth has been known to override my common sense now and again. And while I'm not convinced last night's little adventure provided a lot of _that_, it did help to clarify some things for me."

Dean hums in answer, smothering another yawn.

There's more to talk about there, but they can do that later. Dean knows he should really apologize, too, for the way he treated Pastor Jim last night, and he will, but dammit, it's early and the quiet motion of the car is only serving to remind him of how bone-deep _tired_ he is. He watches the buildings slide by the window, dew still gleaming on the scattered patches of grass. Street signs go whizzing past, their faces obscured by the glare of the early morning sun.

It doesn't matter. Dean knows their names, remembers this drive with a comforting familiarity born out of years of experience. He can feel his eyelids growing heavy, his head listing on his neck, and he dozes for what must be only seconds before he startles himself awake with the thump of his head knocking against the window pane.

"Ugh, should've gone for coffee," he grunts.

He raises a numb, weighted hand to rub at his eyes again, attempting to shake off the creeping fatigue. He tries to sit up straight, but his head falls back against the car seat with a muffled thud.

Pastor Jim is watching him closely from the driver's seat. Over his shoulder, Dean sees the post office come and go as they rocket on down the highway.

"Hey, the—" Dean slurs. His tongue feels thick in his mouth, his thoughts fuzzy and distant. "Did you—?"

Dean struggles against the undertow. He's aware, distantly, of a kind of creeping horror. He _knows_ this feeling. He knows what this _is_.

"D'd you _drug_ me?"

Pastor Jim's face is a blur, his expression lost in Dean's swirling vision.

"I'm sorry, Dean," he says in a muffled voice. "But everything's going to be alright, okay? I promise."

Dean tries to focus, tries to will himself to grab for his gun, fight it, do _something_, but his body just won't move. His head lolls back, and the car ceiling swims in front of his eyes, blackness creeping in at the edges.

"No," he croaks. "Wh—? Don't— _S_—"

"I'm sorry," Pastor Jim repeats from somewhere very far away.

It's the last thing Dean remembers.


	53. Chapter 53

As always, thanks so much for the reviews, guys! We're glad you enjoyed the brother cuddles at the beginning of the last chapter before we so rudely ripped the rug out from under you. A lot of people were shocked and wondered why Jim did what he did... Well, this chapter has your answers! Read on, and we hope you enjoy!

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><p>Sam wakes up to the sounds of shuffling footsteps. He groans sleepily, rubbing his face against the sheets and wincing when he feels a tiny puddle of wetness smear against his cheek. The gait he hears doesn't belong to his brother, though Sam thinks he recognizes it. He gropes for the knife under the pillow just in case, but it seems to have shifted during the night. He flexes his empty palm into a fist and cracks open one eye.<p>

It's just Pastor Jim. He's standing just inside the doorway, looking at something he has clutched in his left hand. Sam relaxes, sits up with a groan and a rustle of blankets.

"Mornin'," he murmurs, sleepily shoving hair off his face.

"Good morning, Sam," Pastor Jim replies softly.

He moves to tuck the thing in his hand into the pocket of his slacks, and Sam abruptly recognizes it as his cell phone. He frowns in confusion.

"What're you doing with that?"

Pastor Jim doesn't answer. He stares at Sam with an unreadable expression.

"Where's Dean?" Sam asks, feeling his hackles rise.

"He went out."

Sam slides his hand under the pillows again, renewing the search for Dean's knife as subtly as he can.

"Where did he go?" he asks warily.

Pastor Jim takes a step forward.

"Don't worry," he says. "He's fine. Everything's _fine_."

His voice is gentle, disarming, and his eyes have that same kind, warm glow Sam recognizes. He raises one palm in a calming gesture that might even have a prayer of working if Sam hadn't already spotted his own Taurus clasped tight in the hand at Jim's side.

"_Christo_," Sam spits, clamoring to his feet.

Pastor Jim's eyes don't go black. His face doesn't contort, and he doesn't start laughing maniacally or railing about his evil plan. He isn't possessed, and instead of relief, Sam can only feel crushing disappointment. His stomach twists sickly.

"I know how this looks," Pastor Jim says, raising the gun to train it on Sam. "God help me, I'm still not sure it's the right thing to do, but I just can't take the chance, Sam. You have to understand that."

"What are you _talking_ about?" Sam demands.

His mind is whirling a mile a minute. He doesn't know what's going on, but he knows he needs to get out of here. There's only one door, and the preacher is standing between it and Sam. He wonders if Pastor Jim could really shoot him, if Sam might be able to shove past him and escape in a moment of hesitation. Would he have enough time? Would it be worth the risk?

"I promised I'd help you," the other man says, treading slowly backward. "I promised I wouldn't let you hurt anybody. This is the only way I can make sure that doesn't happen. The thing inside you? Your place in the demons' plans? It's too big, Sam. It's too dangerous. There's too much at stake for us to be taking chances."

Sam knows this argument, has heard these words before in a different voice, and oh no. No, _no_.

"It's going to be all right," Pastor Jim is saying soothingly. "He's not going to hurt you. I'm not going to let either of you boys get hurt."

"My dad?!" Sam exclaims, panic creeping into his voice. "You called my _dad?_"

"He'll be here in a few hours. We're going to figure this out, Sam."

_If he doesn't put a bullet in me first_, Sam thinks hysterically. _If he doesn't just call and tell you to kill me yourself and save him the trip._

"Pastor Jim, you don't understand!" he protests. "I know you're trying to help, but you don't know what he's been like. You can't trust him! He's a hunter, and I'm—!"

"You're his _son_," Pastor Jim interrupts firmly.

"Where's Dean?" Sam demands. "Just ask him, okay? He'll tell you—"

"I sent him away. Your father and I agreed that he doesn't need to be around you right now."

Sam's eyes go wide, then narrow sharply, his fear transforming quickly into anger.

"You can't _do _that!"

"I didn't have a choice," Pastor Jim says. "After what I heard last night? With everything I know about you two? You must know that Dean is safer the further away he is from you."

He's standing at the entranceway now, one hand grasping the heavy door handle, and Sam realizes that he means to lock him in, to trap him here in this stone room in the basement of the church with its barred windows and fortified doors. This room, stripped now of all of Pastor Jim's weapons and books, with its thin mattress and its temporary supplies… It's not a panic room anymore.

It's a prison cell.

"Wait!" Sam shouts, darting forward. "Stop! _Don't_—!"

"I really am sorry, Sam," Pastor Jim says, slamming the door shut with a scream of protesting hinges. "This is for the best. You'll see."

Sam can hear his keys turning in the locks. He pounds on the door with all his strength.

"Open the door!" he yells. "Pastor Jim, don't _do_ this! Just listen to me, _please_!"

There's no sound from the other side of the wall. Sam pounds another futile fist against the thick wood, feeling tears prick at the corner of his eyes.

"I trusted you," he rasps, and it sounds pitifully, stupidly naïve.

He hangs his head and draws a deep, tremulous breath. Dean was right. Of _course_ Dean was right.

And now he's gone.

* * *

><p>The first thing Dean is aware of is the feeling that something is terribly, terribly wrong. He feels sick, his body wracked with cold sweat, his stomach in knots. It takes him a minute to get his eyes open, and he finds himself staring at a churning gnarl of neon stripes and smears. He pinches his eyes shut again and hopes desperately that he doesn't puke.<p>

He's moving— No, he's _inside_ something that's moving. He cracks open one eye and finds himself staring up at a ceiling made of gray cloth and dull plastic. The air blasting down into his face from the vents is slightly musty and chillingly cold. There's a large window on his right looking out over miles of unfamiliar highway in either direction, and in the seat next to him, there's a sullen teenager with two-tone hair glaring at Dean over his phone.

A bus. He's on a bus.

Why the _hell_ is he on a _bus?!_

"Where am I?" Dean demands, fighting a rolling wave of nausea as he clamors to his feet.

"We'll be in Kansas City in about an hour," a woman across the row from him replies, the clacking of her knitting needles slowing to a stop as she stares at him.

"Hey, sir?" the bus driver calls, glaring at him in the rearview mirror. "I'm going to need you to sit down!"

"We— _What?_ How—" Dean gasps, heart pounding. "How did I get here?!"

The teenager yanks one of his earbuds out, glowering up at him.

"Hey, he said _sit down_."

The bus goes over a bump, and Dean stumbles, grabbing the back of the seat in front of him in a white-knuckled fist, head spinning.

"How did I get here?!" he demands again.

"Dude, what is _wrong_ with you?" the kid scowls. "You've been on the bus since, like, Missouri."

"I got on?" Dean interrogates him. "I _walked_ on?"

"Ye-_ah_…" the teenager says slowly. "What, you don't remember?"

Dean doesn't remember. The last thing he knew, he was in bed next to Sam. No, wait, he was having breakfast with Pastor Jim. And then… he thinks he remembers getting in his car?

What happened after that?

"You did look kind of wasted," the kid continues. "Your friend had to help you out, but you were definitely awake. Tried talking to me for a little bit before you finally passed out. Man, you really don't remember? How much did you _have__?_"

Dean tries to think back, ignoring the bus driver as she orders him again to sit down. He remembers being in the car, and then feeling weird… Pastor Jim apologizing for something...

_Fuck_.

"Stop the bus!" he shouts, shoving past the teenager's legs and stumbling down between the rows. "Stop!"

"Sit down!" the bus driver hollers.

Dean doubles over and retches onto the carpet. One of the other passengers shrieks, and the driver swears colorfully. She pulls over onto the shoulder, opening up the doors to let the smell out, and Dean staggers off the bus, ignoring her protests.

There's a cluster of cheap restaurants at an exit a half-mile down the road, and Dean makes his way to it as quickly as he can, stopping only once to vomit onto the asphalt.

The last thing he remembers, it was just past sunrise. Now the sun is hanging high in the sky, beating down on him in a sharp contrast to the chill of the bus. That means he's lost five, maybe six hours?

Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

Everything's a blur and his head is pounding, like someone took the worst hangover he's ever had and multiplied it by three. Dean's not quite sure how he makes it to the parking lot or how he finds the car to boost. His limbs are weak, his hands fumbling on the lock, the wiring. The car bursts to life, and Dean presses his damp forehead tight against the steering wheel, willing himself not to be sick again.

He doesn't have time to throw up. He doesn't have time to panic.

He has to get back to Sam.


	54. Chapter 54

Dean beat a phouka at lying once in the dead, dark backwoods of Pennsylvania, one of those cases when Dad was gone and Sam was gone and not much else seemed to matter. He won a wish locked tight in a silver ring for his trouble. Coulda gone for money. Fame. Smarts.

He picked never getting pulled over for speeding again. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

It seems like a fucking _fantastic_ idea now. He tears through the miles between him and Sam, rips apart should-have-knowns and could-have-dones in his head as his heart pounds, his hands clenched tight on the wheel. He tries, tries and fails not to think of every twisted, evil thing that Dad and Jim could be doing to Sammy right now, but when he hits Blue Earth, when the snarling, angry, dizzy mess the rage and the drugs have made him crosses that county line, it's not making them pay that's on his mind. It's not what they were thinking then or what they're doing now or anything.

It's the thick, black, awful cloud that's on the horizon, choking out sun and sky and right where Jim's church - right where _Sam_ - should be.

Dean thought he couldn't drive any faster. He thought wrong.

He tears up the church drive and skids to a stop. John Winchester, eyes heavy and face black with grime, is helping a coughing, soot-covered Jim out of the parsonage and into the truck.

"What happened? Where's Sam?" Dean demands, door slamming like a shot behind him.

"They came while we were in the church," Jim rasps, choking on air. "The Boeffels— we—"

Dean doesn't wanna hear it. He _trusted_ this bastard. _Sam_ trusted this bastard, and he drugged Dean and shipped him off, and if this son of a bitch is _here_ in the parking lot running his trap then—

"WHERE THE HELL IS SAM?!" Dean roars.

Dad and Jim don't say a thing, not a damn thing, but their eyes track heavy with guilt to the burning sanctuary, and Dean knows, he just _knows_. Knows that they kept Sammy caged in that panic room, knows they had him locked up like an animal while they did who the hell knows what, and when shit went to hell, when it all fell apart, they caught wind and ran off, and they just _left_ him there, tore off after their precious fucking civvies and left his brother alone to burn.

His little brother is in there, and they weren't even gonna try and save him.

The rage rips into Dean, tears through him hot and fast. This is the last time, the _last time_ someone locks them up, puts them in a cage and turns their back and leaves them to fucking die, and it's worse, so much worse, because it's _Sam_, it's Sam and he's _Dean's_ and he could already be too late and he had one job, _one job_—

"Sammy!" Dean shouts, barreling to the smoking side doors.

Jim and Dad surge forward, snatch at his arms. Well, good fucking luck stopping him, because Dean is _not_ having that, not when Sam could be- could be— Before he even registers it, he's whirling, his fist shooting out, slamming into Dad's jaw with punishing, brutal, _unforgiving_ force. Dean sends him reeling just in time to fling Jim back against the truck, and then he's back at it, kicking hard against the blistering doors. They give, break, collapse to the floor and send up a sharp, stinging cloud of ash and embers. Dean winces as the searing, oven-like heat hits him in a broiling, furious wave. His eyes are watering as sweat breaks out, and he can't _see_, can't see a damn thing.

"Sammy?" he shouts, squinting through the soot and smoke, already gasping for air in the clawing, claustrophobic heat.

The windows are gone, the pews going as the flames climb higher and higher up the walls, over the rafters, licking and laving and leaving filthy black stripes across saints and sinners alike. Showers of soot and cinder pour over him like a hot, angry rain.

"Dean, this place is coming down!" Dad shouts, surging into the church behind him and snatching a fistful of Dean's jacket, hauling him back towards the ruined door. "We have to get out!"

"Not without Sam," Dean swears, shoving free and tearing down the aisle to the panic room with a vengeance, dodging the burning chunks of plaster that are coming from the roof.

"All we know Sam coulda done this!" Dad roars at his back, and Dean doesn't have time for this, needs to get to Sammy right the hell now. "He could be long gone with those—"

Dean whirls, has the Colt out before he even registers going for it, glaring through the smoke down the barrel at his father.

"Say another word," he grinds out, fierce and furious, and _they don't have time for this_. "I'll put a bullet in you, I swear to god. Now, are you gonna help or are you gonna get the hell out?"

"Hurry!" John bites out after a moment, a heartbeat's hesitation _they don't have_, digging the keys from his pocket without taking his eyes off Dean. "This place won't last much longer."

"Whose fuckin' fault is that?" Dean mutters, snatching the keys and shoving the gun back in his jacket as he surges down the aisle.

He dodges another barrage of burning debris, half-runs, half-falls down the stairs to the panic room, and collapses against the hot, heavy iron door with a frenzied bang.

"Sammy?" he rasps, voice smoke-singed and heart in his stinging throat as it stops, it all just _stops_, everything, until—

"Dean?" Sam coughs from the other side of the door, his voice faint and incredulous and muffled by unforgiving iron. Entirely against Dean's will, against everything he's ever said or seen or known, his eyes close and his chin tips up and a near-silent 'thank you' escapes.

"Better late than never, right?" he jokes weakly.

His fingers trip and tangle over the sooty, searing steel of the locks to the panic room. For a second, for one awful, terrifying second, he thinks they're gonna jam up on him, that it'll all end with him on one side of the door and Sam on the other, but then the last tumbler gives, the last bar falls away, and there's Sam.

He's sweaty and grimy and shaking but he's here, here and alive and holding onto Dean like he's the last safe, solid thing in the world, and nothing, absolutely nothing else matters. Nothing but the sooty, sweaty, trembling tangle of _home_ and _safe_ and _brother_ locked around him, against him, lungs gasping and heart pounding. Dean doesn't know what he would have done if he hadn't- if they couldn't- He just doesn't fucking _know_.

"What'd I tell ya about playin' with matches, Sammy?" he breathes into Sam's shoulder, voice thick and hoarse with a harsh, stinking mix of smoke and hot, heavy relief.

"Fun and easy?" Sam rasps on a shaky, shuddering laugh.

"The fuck are you two doin'?!" John barks from the top of the staircase. "This place is _two seconds_ from gone. Let's get a fucking move on!"

"Dad?!" Sam exclaims as Dean hustles him up the stairs into the sanctuary.

"Long story," Dean says, shielding Sam from the debris raining from the ceiling and shooting a worried glance in the direction of the rafters, creaking dangerously as they threaten to give. "Move already!"

"Boys!" John barks, throwing out an arm just as a section of the roof caves, collapses right in front of them, cuts them off in a rain of burning plaster and smoking, cindery insulation.

"Shit!" Dean swears, fists a hand in the jacket over Sammy's shoulder and shoves him down the space between two mercifully unburnt pews, towards the other side door with John at his heels, furiously muttering.

"Come on, come on, faster-!"

"Dean!" Sam calls, eyes darting up as they clear the pews.

The heat seems sharper, the flames all around them higher, faster, the hot, threatening cracking over their heads closer, _meaner,_and the note in Sam's voice, the _fear_—

"_RUN!_" Sam shouts.

And suddenly he's pushing them, shoving them both towards the door. It's Sam's hands, but it's _not_, because they're _everywhere_, like getting hit by one big Mack truck of _brother_ thrusting them across the room so fast Dean's boots barely skim the floor.

There's a snarling, crackling roar as the ceiling gives, comes down in a hot, hellfire rush of smoke and ash and ruin. Before Dean can move or shout or do anything, Sam shoves a hand up, shoves a hand up and punches out and- and goddammit, it's like a fucking _bomb_ goes off, blasts the collapsing ceiling out and away.

Before Dean can process anything more than _holy shit_, Dad is hauling them both forward by their collars, flinging them out the side door. He drags them across the parking lot, keeps dragging them until they can collapse against the Impala in a tangled, gasping, panting heap, sirens a faint, far-off wail in the distance.

And Dean might want to crawl into the front seat of his baby and sleep for a week, collapse into sooty clothes and noodley limbs and Force-punching baby brothers, but he's got a job, a job covered in soot and grime and making really fucking scary wheezing noises against his collarbone right now. He shoves away the pounding in his head, the aching in his chest, the burning in his fingers and stinging in his eyes to push Sam off. His brother leans against the Impala while Dean checks him over for burns and bruises and breaks and whatever the fuck you check over after your little brother saves your ass by psychically pounding the shit out of a burning building.

"M'fine," Sam murmurs, his voice a rough, smoke-wrecked rasp. He leans into Dean's hand as it skates nervously over his face, trying to suss out what's burned or bruised and what's just dirty. He recognizes the split on Sam's cheek as his sucker punch from last night, and gets a fresh hit of guilt.

"Yeah, you're the picture of fucking health," Dean grumbles as he checks Sam's face, his neck, his clothes for any burns or cinders that might have escaped the fire. "Breathe for me."

Sam inhales deep and barely manages to swallow a whimper.

"ER, _now_," Dean orders, opening the passenger seat with his best 'Don't Fucking Fight Me On This, Sammy' glare.

"Dean," Sam wheezes, stomping his foot like an annoyed eight year-old.

"Your brother's right, Dean," Dad gravels from where he's been leaning silently against the back fender, listening to the sirens wailing in the distance. "It's not safe here. We need to move."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Dean sputters. "You, you of all goddamn people are gonna tell me what's safe for him? You were ready to let him _die!_"

"We didn't know-!"

"What, that he's your fucking _son?_" Dean demands, rounding on their Dad as the fear, the panic, falls away into nothing but hot, bloody rage. "That you don't leave family behind like that? That you can't just call it a day and ditch us when it looks bad? Or when it gets in the way of the goddamn mission?!"

"Dean," Sam rasps, his hand on his shoulder, pulling him back, holding him together. "We have to go."

Dean can hear the sirens coming closer, but it's nothing compared to the roaring in his ears, the pulse hammering in his head, fury and betrayal churning like bile in his gut, surging up to stick in his throat, insistent and painful.

"You're damn right we do," he forces out.

"Son," John starts, taking a step closer, palms raised. "You need to understand—"

"No! No, _you_ need to understand," Dean snarls, cutting him off. There's nothing Dad can say, no fucking explanation for this, and this time, for once in their goddamn lives, it's _his_ turn to listen. "If I hadn't showed up when I did, Sam would still be in there!"

He points a finger at the inferno of crackling flame and mangled wood that used to be Pastor Jim's church.

"He'd be dead!" Dean growls, voice thick. "Gone, just like Mom. Slow and awful and just- _just_ like her."

He has to stop, swallow hard against the burn in his throat, the pain.

"You would've killed him!" Dean says, his voice rising, growing more ragged, more furious. "And he wouldn't have been _demonic_ or _evil_ or even using his fucking _powers!_He would've been alone. And scared."

He hears his voice crack, feel tears pricking at his eyes, and he's furious, so fucking furious that he's feels like he's going to burst through his own skin. So furious that his fists are trembling at his sides, and Sam's hand on his shoulder is the only thing keeping him from driving them into Dad's face over and over until he can't recognize him anymore. Until Dean doesn't have to look at him and see the man who used to ruffle his hair when he came through the door at night, who taught Dean to shoot and looked so goddamn proud when he got a bullseye on his first try, who took Dean on his first hunt and taught him to drive and gave him his first Zeppelin tape. The man who'd been his hero since before he can remember, the man who Dean had wanted to _be_.

"He was going to _die_. _Sammy, __your son_was going to die," Dean croaks, "and you were just going to _watch_."

And he doesn't care about the look that creases his father's face, doesn't try to figure out if it's horror or remorse or anything in between, because he doesn't give a _damn_ how Dad feels.

It doesn't matter. None of it matters anymore. Shouldn't have mattered at all, not after Dad laid his hands on Sam in Arkansas, not after he told Dean about the goddamn demon blood, told him to keep an eye on Sam like this was a hunt and Dean's brother was the target, and goddammit, Dean should have known this was coming. The second Dad drew his gun on Sam in Ellen Harvelle's fucking living room, he should have _known_.

Except some part of him _had_ known, hadn't it? He'd sensed way back then how dangerous Dad was becoming. His instincts had been screaming at him to get Sam away from there as soon as possible. He'd just ignored it, kept ignoring it, and dammit, Dean's supposed to be better than this. What's _wrong_with him? Why the hell didn't he go with his gut? Fuck the case, fuck the Demon, fuck _Dad_, that should've been the end of it.

If any other hunter had pointed their piece at Dean's little brother with that look in their eyes, they'd be lucky if they didn't end up a bloody smear on Ellen's carpet. Dean definitely wouldn't have kept working with them, let them call shot after shot, wouldn't have trusted their intel or their intentions. Not after that. Not after they'd called his baby brother a monster and _ever_expected Dean to accept it.

Goddammit, he'd been such an _idiot_. He'd wanted to believe so damn badly - in Dad, in the family, in the idea that if he just _tried hard enough_ he could find a way to make this work, that he could somehow keep them both - and he'd almost lost Sammy today because of it.

He can't afford to make that mistake again. Never, _ever_ again.

"We're done," Dean tells Dad now, level and serious and so, so sure. "Lose our numbers and don't fuckin' follow us. 'Cause I ever see your ass again? If I ever so much as _hear_ about you makin' a move on Sam again?"

Dean takes a step closer, feels Sam's fingers clench tight on his shoulder as he glares at their father, jaw set tight.

"It won't be Yellow Eyes you have to worry about."

He turns his back, shoves a stricken-looking Sammy into the passenger's seat and, slamming the driver's door behind him, jams his key into the ignition and peels out of the parking lot. He leaves his dad standing there on the lawn, reduced to nothing more than a long, black shadow by the flames roaring at his back, and he doesn't think twice.


	55. Chapter 55

John's long gone by the time the ambulance shows up to find Jim abandoned in the shadow of his ruined church. It may not be the worst thing he's done today, but it's not exactly his proudest moment either.

He spends half the night taking his truck up and down the interstate, hands gripped tight on the steering wheel. He doesn't have a goddamn clue where the demons took the Boeffel baby after they killed her parents or what they have planned for her. He's out of leads to follow. He's lost his research, lost the Colt. The boys.

He's lost everything.

The next move, the only move left, is to track down Sam and Dean. John ends up back in Blue Earth instead, ready to flash around a fake badge and get one of the nurses at United Hospital District to update him on Jim Murphy's condition.

He's halfway across the parking lot when he senses someone at his back. He steels himself, hand groping in his pocket for a bottle of holy water.

"Was wondering if you'd turn up."

John pivots on his heel. Caleb is standing in the parking lot, outlined in the dim glow of a lamp post.

"You look like hell," the other hunter says conversationally, gesturing toward John with the cup of coffee in his hand.

John grits his jaw, staring him down. Caleb raises an eyebrow.

"Well, go on," he says, holding out an arm. "Go ahead and run your tests, if that's what it'll take to get you talking."

After John's doused him in salt and holy water, sliced him with silver, rattled off his rough exorcism and had zero results for it, he finally lets out a breath, some of the tension bleeding out. It's not foolproof - not after everything he's seen - but it'll have to do for now.

"Jim's alright," Caleb tells him, winding a bandana around the shallow cut John left in his forearm. "Assuming that's why you're here."

John nods, relief coursing through him.

"Yeah," he says hoarsely. "That's good to hear."

"They're gonna watch him for a couple nights," Caleb continues. "Smoke inhalation, couple of second degree burns, but he should be fine."

Except for the fact that he lost everything in that fire today. Except for the fact that John getting him involved in all this destroyed his life and got him nearly killed, and for what? It didn't save the Boeffels. It didn't keep Yellow Eyes from getting to their daughter, and it sure as shit didn't help Sam and Dean.

John should've known better than to bring any more of the people he cared about into this, no matter how desperate he was. Everyone was so much better off when he was doing this alone.

"You really stepped in it this time, Winchester," Caleb says, as if reading his mind. "Cops're all over this. Local news, too. 'Two killed, one injured in local church bombing.' We'll be lucky if it doesn't end up going national."

"Bombing?" John questions, quirking his brow.

"Well, that's the working theory. How else do you expect them to explain the fact that the front of Jim's church ended up fifty yards away from the rest of it?"

John's mouth forms a long, thin line.

"'Course, we both know what really happened," Caleb adds grimly.

John draws in a long breath, scanning the parking lot for anyone who might be eavesdropping, crams closer to Caleb just to make sure.

"About that," he starts in a low voice. "How many people actually know about Sam?"

"Me and Jim," Caleb answers quietly. "Bobby, maybe, if you actually got him to pick up for you. I put out the word to every hunter I know to call it in if they spotted him, just like you asked. Thought it was better if I didn't say why."

That's for damn sure, and it certainly makes this next part a hell of a lot easier.

"Call it off," John tells him. "Tell 'em whatever you need to. Just get them off of this."

"You sure?" Caleb asks, and John can't blame him for his skepticism.

Knowing what Sam is, knowing what that bastard did to him... If John hadn't been there, hadn't seen with his own eyes that Sam hadn't been involved with the fire, that he'd been just as much a target as John or Jim or the Boeffels, demon powers or no, that when it came down to it, Sam couldn't even use those damn powers to save _himself_, he would want to—

God, he almost _did_.

"I'm sure," he replies firmly. "Getting other hunters involved was a mistake. This should've stayed family business from the start."

"I'll get the word out," Caleb promises. "Kid went missing, turned up okay a couple days later. Should be an easy enough sell. 'Course, if one of these guys caught a scent, there's not much I can do. Might be too late."

"Yeah, I know." John nods grimly.

It's too late for a lot of things.

"Well, if it helps, I already know Jim's on board with your little cover-up," Caleb says. "He says Sam saved your lives in there. Think he'd be calling it a miracle if he didn't know—"

"That my son used demon blood enhanced telekinesis to blow apart half his church?" John finishes wryly.

"Well, it does make the time Dean busted my window with a shotgun look downright saintly," Caleb jokes. He takes a swig of coffee, clears his throat. "Alright, so what's the next move here?"

John furrows his brow, opens his mouth, and then Caleb's phone goes off, startling them both. The other man reaches into his pocket and silences it quickly.

"Sorry," he says. "Yeah, what were you saying?"

John shakes his head, drawing back into himself. It suddenly dawns on him where he is, what he's doing. How he's making the same damn mistake all over again.

"We can't be talking like this. It's not safe."

"You're right," Caleb agrees. "We really should head up there. Jim'll wanna see you anyway, get the update on how we're gonna go after this thing."

John just looks at him.

"Oh hell, John," the other man groans. "Don't tell me you're taking off again."

"I want you both as far away from this as possible," John tells him. "That's how it was from the beginning, and that's how I should've kept it."

"Because you've gotta keep us 'safe,'" Caleb supplies skeptically. "That what you're telling yourself? 'Cause from where I'm standing, that's not what it looks like."

"Yeah?" John glares, bristling under the scrutiny. "What's it look like, then?"

"It looks an awful lot like you running away," Caleb says tersely. "I've known you for twenty years. You think I don't know how you look when you're blaming yourself for things going south? You think I don't know exactly how well you _don't_deal with that? Dammit, John, I don't wanna go into that hospital and tell Jim he's the new Ellen goddamn Harvelle. Don't you dare make me do that."

John squares his shoulders, turns his back on Caleb, and begins to walk back to the truck.

"How 'bout your boys, John?" Caleb speaks up. "You're gonna _have_ to face them."

John pauses, stands silent for a long moment. Caleb's not wrong. He'll have to face them again, one way or another, but John has no idea how he can. How could he look either of them in the eyes again? How could he even begin to fix this? Dean's never going to forgive him. And Sam...

God, he left Sam to _burn_. He almost lost his son just like he lost Mary, not because of any demon but because John was too proud to consider that maybe he was wrong, too scared and angry to be honest with Sam from the start, too goddamn stubborn or just too goddamn stupid to _check the panic room_ before he dragged his own ass out of that church.

How could he _do_ that?

No wonder Dean never wants to hear from him again. He's got every right to hate John for this. Jesus, if _Mary_ had seen this, what would she say? Would she hate him, too? Would she even _recognize_ him?

"Look, John," Caleb says, "I know you. Somethin' like this happens, you wanna make yourself scarce. Go crawl into a hole somewhere and drink yourself stupid, then wake up three weeks from now hating yourself more than you already do."

John doesn't answer. Can't deny it. Can't pretend the thought of licking his damn wounds with nothing a bottle and his guilt for company sounds pretty damn good right about now.

"Well, you may wanna do that," Caleb continues, "but from what I've seen, it doesn't look like you've got that luxury. There's something damn big coming down on you Winchesters, and it's not going to get any easier. Whether they like it or not, those boys are gonna need their daddy. And you sure as hell need them."

John thinks about that for a minute, turns it over in his mind, and yeah, the man's got a point. The Demon's not gonna let up because John _feels bad_, and he sure as shit isn't going to leave Sammy alone. Not now, not ever. Not unless someone stops him.

John can't undo the things he's done, but he has to believe he can still do _this_. He can still get this demon. Put a stop to it and all of its plans. Get vengeance for Mary. Save his sons - _both_ of them - even if he can never make them forgive him.

Caleb's phone goes off again, shrill and insistent.

"It's Jefferson," Caleb tells him, glancing at the display. "I should probably take it. Look, are you-?"

"I'm gonna go," John gravels, and when he sees the protests written all over Caleb's face, he adds: "I heard you. I'm not runnin'. But I'm not taking you and Jim down with me, either."

Caleb claps a hand on John's shoulder, mouth crumpled up with suppressed emotion.

"You're a stubborn bastard, John Winchester," he says, giving John one rough shake. "You better call me if you change your mind."

"I won't," John gravels back. "Now answer your damn phone."

If things keep going the way they are, this may be the last time they see each other, but John won't say goodbye. Doesn't need to. Everything he could think of to say, those two already know and then some. John doesn't have a lot of what people'd call 'friends' left in this goddamn world, but deserve 'em or not, he's got Jim and he's got Caleb.

And now, thanks to him, John knows what it is he needs to be doing, too.

The truth is, John thinks as he cranks up his truck, he wasn't completely wrong about Sam. He _is_ getting too powerful, too damn fast. The way he pulverized Jim's church is proof enough of that.

Sam's just as dangerous and just as chock-full of demon's blood as he was yesterday, but John knows now, is _painfully_aware, that killing Sam isn't an option. Was _never_ an option, no matter what John'd thought before. It's ridiculous, almost goddamn laughable to think that John ever imagined he could steel himself enough to put a bullet in one of his boys, no matter how bad things got. Not when seeing Sam trembling and weak and gasping for breath outside that fire had shattered John into a million pieces, cut him up inside and rubbed self-recrimination in the wounds like salt, because this was _Sammy_, his son, Mary's _baby_, and John almost— God, he might as well have locked the door and lit the match _himself_. He'd have taken Sam from Dean just like Yellow Eyes took Mary from them all, and it would've been _his fault_.

If it comes down to killing Sam, God help them all, John won't. _Can't_.

But there has to be another way. There has to be some way to control it, some way to stop it before it goes too far, and the one person, the one _thing_ that would know how to do it is the same son of a bitch who started all this in the first place. And if John wants to get that information out of the Demon, he'll need leverage.

He'll need the Colt.

Even if he can't make the bastard talk, even if it won't give him a single damn thing, at the very least John will finally have the satisfaction of putting a bullet right between those yellow goddamn eyes. Let's see the bastard try to come after John's family after _that_.

He's turning the wheel to get back on the road when he suddenly hears a loud, frantic rap on his back window. He slams the breaks seconds before Caleb wrenches open the driver's side door, chest heaving, his phone clutched in a bloodless fist.

"John," he pants, "you need to hear this."


	56. Chapter 56

Thanks for the reviews, guys! We've got a short one this week, but don't worry, the next few should make up for it!

* * *

><p>No matter how much Sam tries to argue, they still end up at the ER by midnight. Dean's willing to brush off a lot of crap, but listening to his brother gasping for breath in the passenger's seat isn't one of them. When Sam goes from making scary rattling sounds with every inhale to hacking up a goddamn lung and leaves a smear of foul black mucus in the palm of his hand, Dean gets them off the interstate so fast he makes even himself dizzy.<p>

"We made it a few counties over," he says in answer to the bleary-eyed glare Sam is shooting his way. "That's gonna have to do, Sammy, 'cause your ass is _not_ dying in this car."

The fact that Sam can't manage more than an unintelligible croak in reply is plenty of confirmation that Dean's making the right decision.

He has to keep reminding himself of that when he's halfway through giving the on-calls a brilliant, if hastily scrambled together, cover story about an out-of-control trash fire and Sam forces out a very hoarse demand that the doctors "Check _him_ out, too."

So that's how Dean ends up getting separated from his brother, having some tired-eyed doctor put hands all over him, shine lights in his eyes, and press a freezing cold stethoscope against his back, and it's all just so fucking ridiculous, because Dean's not the one who was _trapped in a goddamn burning building_.

"I'm fine," he keeps telling the guy, with is true except for the fact that the last thing he heard the doctors saying was that they may have to intubate Sammy, and dammit, he needs to know what's happening. He should _be_ there.

And except for the fact that the adrenaline rush that's kept him running for the last few hours is starting to slip away, leaving Dean dizzy and drained, his pounding head and churning stomach unpleasant reminders that he let himself get freaking _roofied_ earlier today.

"No signs of breathing problems," the doc says. "You do seem to be severely dehydrated. Have you been experiencing any vomiting?"

"Seriously, I'm _fine_," Dean repeats impatiently.

He's tired of dealing with this, tired of answering questions and making up lies, just freaking _tired_. He doesn't need a doctor to get over this. He needs to be left alone, and more than that, more than any of that, more than anything _ever_, he needs to get back to Sammy. All Dean has to do is pretend to be the picture of health for just a little while longer, and they'll have to let him go. Fine. He can pull that off.

"I'm okay, I promise," he says for what must be the dozenth time, even though inside he's pretty much just chanting _don't puke, don't puke, don't you friggin' DARE-_ over and over again.

He gives the doc an easy grin, gets a nod back, and thinks 'Goddamn, I'm awesome,' about five seconds before he tries to stand up and ends up kissing linoleum instead.

Turns out passing out during an examination is not the best way to get the hospital staff off your case. Go figure.

"You'll be able to see your brother just as soon as we make sure you're both okay," the doc tells him, and Dean may recognize it for what it is - cheap emotional manipulation to get him to agree to being admitted - but fuck if he feels like fighting it at this point.

It's pretty obvious that he's not getting in to see Sam like this, at least not without raising some kind of holy hell, and honestly, for once in his life, he really doesn't think he has the energy to pull that off. Better to end up being the kid's bunkmate than to have to stalk the waiting room until visiting hours.

Plus, even though Dean knows that he -unlike Sam- actually _is_ okay, he also kinda feels like he got hit by a truck. It actually sounds pretty goddamn fantastic to have a bed to crash in instead of the chairs he usually contorts himself into when someone's gotta stay in the hospital overnight.

That is, it _would_ be fantastic if they would actually let him _get_ to the bed.

Instead, he has to spend what feels like forever getting wheeled around the hospital with an oxygen mask strapped to his face and an IV pole squeaking along behind him, a thin paper gown bunching uncomfortably in the pits of his arms. His head is killing him and his eyelids are so heavy and he just wants to _sleep__,_ but of course, he can't because he's got to get blood tests done and then a fucking chest x-ray.

This is ridiculous. Dean's no stranger to feeling wrung out, but it physically _hurts_ to stay awake at this point. He's seriously about one freaking breath test away from 'fessing up that he's only sick because some asshole preacher slipped him a Forget-Me-Now. Let 'em try to sort that out while he finally catches a few goddamn winks.

He kind of hates Sam for submitting him to all this, but that doesn't change the rush of relief he feels when they finally do take him to his room and he finds Sam already there, hooked up to a mess of machines and IVs but awake and breathing steady under the oxygen mask that covers his mouth and nose. Sam raises the arm without a half-dozen tubes and wires attached to it to give him a weak little wave, flashing Dean a half-grin from behind his mask.

"You're such a dick," Dean grunts, fidgeting uncomfortably while the nurses maneuver him into the bed next to Sam's and start hooking him into his own array of machinery.

He can't understand what Sam says through the plastic, but he's practically radiating smug, so Dean makes sure to flip him off before he passes out cold.


	57. Chapter 57

Sam is so, so glad he thought to make Dean get checked out. He knows what the signs of a chemical hangover look like on his brother (and how fucked up are their lives that he can say _that_?) and Dean sleeping through the night in a hospital room, especially one that has an injured Sam in it, is a pretty big indicator. Sam still doesn't know what Dean's been through, what exactly it is that Jim Murphy did to get Dean out of the picture or how his brother managed to get back to Blue Earth in time to - literally - pull Sam's fat out of the fire, but it's pretty obvious that it left Dean completely spent.

No matter what the reason, it's a relief to know his brother's getting the chance to sleep it off, to have him get a full night's rest for the first time in who knows how long and know that he's being taken care of, whether he likes it or not.

But Sam? Sam can't sleep.

Sure, he's exhausted and pumped full of enough pain meds to put down a horse, but when he closes his eyes, he can't stop thinking about what happened the _last_time he let his guard down and fell asleep with his brother beside him. He can't stop the fear that rushes over him like a wave, drags him down and closes over him so he can't find his way to the surface, and the more he tries to break free, the more it makes his throat constrict, his shallow breaths coming fast, damaged lungs crackling in his chest with every inhale. He can smell the smoke again, can taste it burning the back of his throat, can feel the waves of heat pulsing through the locked door and he's trapped, and there are no vents and no windows and there's no air, just heat and smoke and cinders, seeping - creeping through the cracks and stinging his eyes, burning his lungs as he pounds against the searing iron and he can't break through the door, he can't breathe, he can't _breathe_-

So, no. Sam won't be trying to sleep again anytime soon.

Instead, he sits propped up by a half dozen pillows, one eye on his sleeping brother and the other on the old TV mounted high on the wall in front of him, and tries resolutely to avoid thinking about anything. Not the fire, not their dad or Pastor Jim, not about the Boeffels, not about the fact that any one of the doctors or nurses or orderlies could come over black eyed any second and try and finish what the fire started, and definitely not about the way Sam used his powers to blow apart half of a building tonight. Because if he thinks about that, he has to face the fact that, no matter how hard Dean argues, Dad was right. Sam's powers _are_ getting stronger. They're coming out more often, making Sam more and more dangerous, and worst of all, what Dad doesn't know - what no one knows, what no one can _ever_ know- is that they aren't getting harder to control.

They're getting _easier._

Sam can't tell Dean. He could never explain how he'd felt locked in that room, how he'd fought and screamed himself hoarse, beat his hands bloody on that stupid door. And how it had felt to realize that it didn't even matter. That no one was coming, that there wasn't anyone to save him this time, that this was _it_. He was going to die. He was _dying_, and maybe that was better for everyone, but he was so scared, he wasn't _ready_, he was never going to see his brother again, and God, he'd wasted their last night together on a stupid fight, why did he _do_ that?

And then Dean was there, pulling open the door. Pulling Sam out of the fire, just like always. God, Sam loved him _so_ much, he could've kissed him right there in that burning church. He'd wanted to grab him tight and never let him go again, and he swore, _swore_ he wasn't _ever_ going to question Dean's gut again, he wasn't going to let Dean out of his sight for a _month_, and he sure as fuck wasn't going to get Dean back only to have him crushed by a falling ceiling.

So when Sam had seen it coming down, in that split second between thought and instinct, he'd reached down inside himself, reached for the power that had saved Dean from Max's bullet, had protected him from Dad's fists, had shoved its way through Sam's head screaming and burning with black, awful visions of the future, crying aloud the secrets sleeping in his veins and he'd found it _waiting_. It was right there at his fingertips, just below the surface, and all Sam had needed to do was give it a push, to take it in hand, give it somewhere to go, and watch as it _exploded_ out of him, and it had been so _easy_.

Sam had leveled a building, and it had been easy. A flipped switch, half a thought and the match was in his hand, already touching kindling, a half hope of a Hail Mary turning up a hydrogen bomb, saving Dean and Dad and destroying any hope Sam might have had of not giving in, fighting this, resisting whatever sway the blood has on him, whatever blackness is beating through his veins.

Because if he could do something like this without even really trying…

God, what _else_is he capable of? What kind of damage could he do if he really did go Dark Side? Hell, what kind of damage is he _going_ to do the next time something threatens his brother?

And what does it say about him that every time he's used these powers, it's been because of Dean?

Because so far the visions are things that _happen_ to Sam, but this- this is different. This is something he could _use_ if he wanted to- _has_ used- has _been_ using since as far back as Louisiana when he brought Dean back from the fucking _dead_ and sent up a signal to all the forces of Hell in the process.

Louisiana...

All of this started there. Before Louisiana, all Sam wanted was to get out of hunting, to live a life without monsters always breathing down his neck, without constantly jumping at shadows, seeing shapes in the dark coming after him, coming after his brother. Wanted a life where he didn't close his eyes every night knowing monsters were real, knowing that they were there, waiting, and that all they could do, all he was _allowed_ to do, was shove down the fear and tear out after them, again and again and again.

He wanted a choice. A life. He wanted to feel _safe_.

But now?

Now, Sam's scared all the time. Scared to sleep at night because he knows he'll see Jess burning or Dean lying bloodless and cold. Scared every day that another vision will come tearing its way into his skull, murder and pain playing out inside his mind in gruesome high definition. Scared of the Demon, of Dad, of_himself._ So terrified of losing his brother again that half the time he can barely function, and when he can, he hurts people, causes waves of destruction with the same goddamn powers the demons want him to use to destroy the world.

Since Louisiana everything has gotten so wrong, so _twisted_.

Sam used to think what was between he and Dean was his only safe port in the storm, something that wasn't untouched by the horrors happening around them, but was stronger for it. The only thing left he could trust, the foundation he could build on. What he had at the end of the day that weighed out the bleak, awful darkness of their lives. Now though… Now he's not so sure. Because the way he feels about his brother now?

That's pretty much the definition of twisted.

The heat that rises in Sam when Dean shoots him that "Come On, Sammy" grin, just a little bit of the devil hiding in the glint of his smile, the gleam in his eye, daring him to break the rules, just this once. The hot, heady flutter that kicks up when he catches sight of the smooth, muscled span of his brother's back coming out of the shower, broad, strong shoulders racing down to slim, sharp hips, the amulet Sam gave him glowing a hot, glinting bronze against tanned, golden skin, just begging to be licked, sucked, branded as his with teeth and tongue and it's wrong, worse than wrong, because Dean is his _brother_, his _family_ and he- he sticks by Sam, backs him when no one in their right mind would, past the point of loyalty, of _sanity_, and he wouldn't- he couldn't- Sam can never- _should_ never-

Because it's not just sex, not just the fact that Dean's prettier than anyone who lives on fast food and gets into fights for a living has any right to be. Hell, Sam wishes it _were_ that easy, wishes he could just find a top with green eyes and bad taste in music and be done with it, but it's not that easy. It could never be that easy, not for Sam, because he lives and breathes Dean, from the stupid, spiky tips of his goddamn gelled hair to the scarred, salted-steel toes of his busted, broken-in biker boots. He can't even think of wanting someone else this much, knowing them this well, wanting to spend every second of every minute of every day with them, around them, wrapped up inside them, because they're Sam-and-Dean and Dean-and-Sam, and there's no substitute for that, no stand-in that he can find in a bar or a classified ad or at a goddamn crossroads, nothing that matches up to being the strength in your step and the muscle at your back and the arms pulling you out of burning buildings when the flames rise up, close in, try to swallow you whole.

And that part, the part where Dean's everything that ever mattered, that's not new, but it's- it's more now, bigger, kicked up from wanting to needing, from needing to can't-live-without, from just omnipresent to world-ending, non-stop, all-consuming ever since-

Well, ever since Louisiana.

Ever since Sam drew a line down his arm with a scalpel between the things that were allowed to leave this world and the one person in this life or any other that Sam claimed as absolutely, unequivocally, irrevocably necessary.

Him, come hell or high water.

It's their thing. The thing that's been between them all their lives, between the backseats and greasy spoon booths, between PT sessions and birthdays, between hunting and holidays, wins and losses, highs and lows and highways, between leaving and being left and only ever left, at the end of the day, with each other.

He and me. First, last, and always.

And what Sam feels is that, that same bond that's always been there, steel bands shoved into the crucible of Covington, of Yellow Eyes and demon's blood and coming out true, tempered, stronger than ever before and red hot on his end, searing, scorching and burning at him more and more with every stupid fucking revelation about his demonic goddamn destiny, just getting more urgent, more dark and twisted the more they learn about him and his tainted goddamn blood and filthy fucking-

...Demon powers. His filthy fucking demon powers.

And there are coincidences in this world, and then there's looking the other fucking way as your incestuous fucking obsession with your big brother gets bigger and stronger at the exact time as your world-ending Antichrist arsenal expands. If this has sunk that deep, reaches that far into him, has wormed its way into what's between he and Dean and left it sick and black and twisted then, then-

God, Dad was right to leave him in that fucking church.

Because there's no way to know. No way Sam can know. No way.

No one to ask, no text to reference, no test to run to find out if this is just part and parcel of the whole Antichrist thing or if Sam comes by his sick, twisted obsession with his brother honestly.

Either way…

God, either way he's broken. Either way he's dirty and twisted and wrong, from the inside out, and there's no exit here. There's no getting past this.

Sam knows that, knows it about himself. He knows it just like he knew the first time Dad put a gun in his hand that he'd never be as good a shot as Dean, just like he knew the first time he threw a knife at a pine tree on a dusty Dakota backroad that it'd land true, hit the trunk, sink deep into the sharp, sticky sap and stay fast.

He knows it just like he knew the first time he kissed Jess that he could kiss her for the rest of his life and be happy. That she was everything good and sweet, everything he wanted and needed and never had, everything that homes and lives were built on, grew from.

Jess...

She didn't deserve what he brought down on her. Didn't deserve that just like Dean doesn't deserve this, doesn't deserve to be the center of Sam's sick, twisted...

God, not Dean. Not Dean, who even now, even conked out and drooling, sleeping off stress and smoke and a drug hangover on top of who-knows-how-many nights now of skipping sleep in favor of taking the late watch, of chasing leads or demons, of pushing through, playing through the pain, putting his own needs aside for Dad's or Sam's, is reaching towards his little brother in his sleep.

It must hurt, staying turned towards Sam that way. Must be uncomfortable, must be driving awful, unshakable pressure into every ache and pain he's got, tugging a dozen different tubes and leads, but Dean, always Sam's brother first, is ignoring it all, just like always, because it's Sam and because he's Dean and if there was anyone, anyone alive that Sam would count as bone-deep, unequivocally, earthshakingly _good_, it's Dean. Anyone Sam would protect from himself at all costs, would tell to just slam the door and never look back, it's Dean.

Sam would. Really, he thinks to himself as he flips morosely though the channels of the hospital's battered, flickering TV set, he would. If it was to save Dean, to protect his brother from the awful, twisted blackness inside of himself, he could do it.

But he knows Dean, Sam realizes, settling on a fuzzy, so-late-it's-early run of the local news. He'd never go.

It took the element of surprise and a chemical cocktail of who-knows-what from Jim to get Dean away from Sam today, and even with that, his brother literally and non-metaphorically walked through fire to get back to his side.

If that's not empirical proof of Dean's desire to stick with Sam come hell or high water, he doesn't know what is.

And of course, the second Sam realizes what a bleak metaphor that really is _not_ is the second a DMV-bad photo of Pastor Jim flashes on the screen, quickly chased by a shot of the smoldering ruins of the church under the banner "CAVALRY CHURCH BOMBING SHOCKS BLUE EARTH."

Sam watches in tense silence as the hair-sprayed, power-suited newscaster goes through the details of the fire, a fresh, hot slice of guilt and pain lashing Sam as she lists the casualties: Tennessee native Bryan Boeffel. His young wife, Sarah. Their infant daughter Melissa, just five months old. And local pastor Jim Murphy, in stable condition at a county hospital.

"Police and arson investigators are looking for two men for questioning in connection to the bombing," the anchor continues, as Sam's hand clenches on the TV remote and his stomach drops right through the floor. "Both men were describes as in their late teens or early twenties, seen leaving the scene in a dark—"

"Dean, get up!" Sam rasps, spiking the remote across the room at his brother as he drags the oxygen off his face and digs in the covers for the call button. "We need to get out of here, now!"


	58. Chapter 58

Checking out AMA is a huge pain in the ass, especially when Dean actually _agrees_ with the docs who are trying to get them to stay. It's pretty hard to keep saying 'no' when they're telling him how risky it is to stop treatment, how Sam could still get worse, that maybe there are problems they won't even know about until the test results come back, throwing out mortality rates and words like 'infection,' 'co-morbidities,' and 'permanent damage' like he doesn't already _know_ this is a piss-poor fucking idea.

Goddammit, Dean doesn't like rolling the dice with Sam's health. He really, really doesn't. But there's no way around it. They need to get the hell outta Dodge, fast.

Doesn't mean Dean's not gonna stop at the pharmacy and pick up the mountain of meds that're supposed keep Sam from ending up in a freaking iron lung first, no matter how much his brother tries to push him to keep driving. He even takes the time to get details on what each one does, how to take 'em and when, and has the pharmacist explain the deep breathing exercises Sam's supposed to be doing each hour all over again, just to be sure.

He does all that more out of worry than out of a desire to mess with the kid, but he won't pretend that when he comes out of the pharmacy and sees Sam sitting in the passenger's seat where Dean left him, pouty-faced and arms crossed, it doesn't give him a certain thrill of big-brotherly glee.

The early morning sky is full of grey, rumbling clouds and the smell of ozone, and as Dean jogs across the parking lot, a handful of fat raindrops land on his cheeks and shoulders. He slides into the car and manages to slam the door right before the bottom drops out, torrents of water obscuring the parking lot on all sides. He tosses his brother the slightly damp plastic bag and watches as Sam picks through them, reading the schedule Dean made the pharmacist write up for him with a pinched expression.

He looks up after a moment, giving Dean a questioning look.

"There a reason we're not moving?"

"Just wanna make sure we got everything," Dean tells him over the sound of rain battering the roof.

"It looks like we have the whole pharmacy in here," Sam rasps, picking up the box containing a portable nebulizer with a raised eyebrow.

Dean's pretty proud of that particular find. It hooks up to the cigarette lighter so they can use it no matter where they are. It's not his fault Sam doesn't appreciate ingenuity.

Sam lets the nebulizer plop back into the bag with a crinkle before picking up another, smaller box and peering at it curiously.

"That's a rescue inhaler," Dean tells him. "You're supposed to carry it around with you from now on, just in case."

Sam huffs out a frustrated, wheezy breath.

"Come on, don't you think you're being a little ridiculous?"

"Nope," Dean replies shortly.

"Dean, I'm _fine."_

"You really gonna try feeding me that line?" Dean asks. "'Cause you sound like one of those people from the anti-smoking ads right now."

"That'll go away," Sam protests.

"Yeah, it _might_. Or you might get _sepsis_," Dean shoots back. "Don't try to pull that crap. I got the same lecture back at the hospital that you did."

"Just get us onto the Interstate," Sam demands plaintively.

"Do your breathing thing," Dean orders in return, cranking up the car and switching on his headlights.

"Why do I feel like that's gonna be code for 'Shut up, Sam,' for the next week?" his brother grumbles.

"Shut up, Sam," Dean replies, squinting to see through the mist rising off the pavement as he backs the car out of its space.

He drives through the downpour, listening to the rhythmic sounds of the wipers and Sam's deep breathing, interrupted only by the continued rustling of the bag as Sam inspects the rest of the contents. Dean still has no idea where they're going, and he flips open his cell on instinct, only to find it dead.

He tosses it onto the pile in Sam's lap where it lands with a muted, plasticy thump.

"Do me a favor and plug that in?"

Sam nods and does it without a word, lets out the breath he's been holding and then takes another, and that reminds Dean of something else he's been meaning to bring up, something he'd remembered this morning when he was shimmying out of hospital duds to change back into his street clothes.

Impulsively, he reaches up and yanks off his anti-possession charm, tossing it into the bag, too.

"And put that on, would ya?"

Sam picks it up, expression stormy, and opens his mouth to - undoubtably - give Dean hell.

"Hey, I only counted three breaths there, Sammy," Dean interrupts him. "Supposed to do ten, aren't ya?"

"Dean—"

"Ah ah ah," Dean chides. "Our job is running after monsters. I'm not taking any chances with your permanent freaking lung capacity."

"_Dean_—"

"Sam," Dean returns stubbornly.

Sam looks murderous but draws in another deep breath and holds it through a bitch face for the ages, and fuck yeah, Dean is a _genius_.

"Look," Dean says, "it's not like I can't get a new one. Which I _will_, ASAP, but for now, I want you wearing it. And don't you dare argue with me on this, because your little demon summoning field trip the other night makes _twice_ now that not having one has almost gotten you _killed_. I'm not sitting around with a thumb up my ass waiting to see what happens _next time._"

Sam lets out his breath with a furious-sounding, wheezy huff.

"But what if-?" he starts, only to have Dean cut him off again.

"No 'but's. Either you put it on or I'm flushing it like you did my last pack of Marlboros."

Sam makes a disgruntled noise.

"Last pack," he croaks sarcastically, sounding a little bit like a pissed-off frog. "Last pack I _found_."

"Damn right," Dean shoots back. "Now, you gonna wear it or is it going the goldfish way? 'Cause I'm not putting it back on."

Sam frowns deeply at the charm in his palm.

"Listen Dean, if this is because of yesterday—"

Dean's cell phone switches on suddenly with a loud trill, rescuing Dean from whatever half-baked psychoanalysis crap Sam had been about to throw at him. (Because, you know, asking your brother to take some meds and not get possessed is highly suspicious behavior. _Definitely_ some kind of deeper motive there. _Christ_.) Dean reaches over and grabs the phone off of Sam's knee.

"Holy fuck," he swears when he sees the number of missed calls. "Are these from _you_?"

"No, Jim 86'd mine before he threw the locks," Sam rasps him, brows drawn together in concern. "What is it?"

"Ash, Bobby, Ellen, Ellen, Bobby, Ellen, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby, Bobby," Dean lists. "Holy shit, what the hell happened?"

"Aside from our fun brush with immolation?" Sam suggests.

"Do your breathing exercises," Dean tosses back absently, dialing his voicemail, then pauses with his finger over the speaker button.

He glances over at Sam, who's watching him expectantly, and jerks his thumb towards the charm still clutched in his brother's fist, a silent order: _Put it on, then you can listen._

Sam rolls his eyes, but slides it over his head anyway. The second it hits his clavicle, Dean's pressing 'play.'

_Beep._

"Winchester Número Dos, Ash here. Can't get your brother, but I got time-sensitive intel that needs droppin', pronto. Hit me back."

_Beep._

"Dean, answer your goddamn phone, boy! I don't know what the hell you're doin' that's so damn important, but this ain't the time! My phones are going off the fuckin' hooks, and it's either dumbass friends of your daddy looking for your 20 or reports of demon activity right around where your 20 should be, so whoever she is, pull out, get Sam, and get somewhere safe."

_Beep._

"Dean? Ellen. There's- there's been an attack at the bar. Demons. Came back, sulfur everywhere, and Ash, he... He didn't make it. They're movin' on us, and they're bein' smart about it. You boys better watch out. Your Daddy, too."

_Beep._

"Dean, you, Sam, your Daddy, and Jim Murphy have all gone radio silent at the same time, and that either means you're all dumbasses, or you're in the goddamn middle of this. Call me."

_Beep._

"This ain't funny, Dean. You and your brother keep not answering, and you're gonna goddamn worry me, and you do not want that. Pick. Up. Now."

Sam and Dean share a look of mute horror. Dean pulls over onto the shoulder, snaps his phone shut, and spikes it against the dash. There's a hollow pit in his stomach, his mind buzzing like static - too much input, too fast, and he has no idea what to _do_ with it. In the seat next to him, Sam's curling so deep into himself that Dean's half-convinced he's going to disappear.

Dean's the first one to speak.

"Shit," he says eloquently and then, smacking a palm against the steering wheel, "Shit, shit, _shit!_"

He groans, pressing his forehead against the wheel, shutting his eyes tight. How could things have gone so bad, so _fast?!_ And what the hell are they supposed to do _now?_

"We need to go to Bobby's," Sam rasps, as if in answer to his silent question.

Dean cracks open his eyes and turns slightly to stare at him.

"We _what_ now?"

"We need to go to Bobby's," Sam repeats, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Dude, are you crazy?" Dean demands, sitting up straight. "After what happened yesterday, the last thing we need is to be within a hundred _miles_of another hunter."

"This isn't just some other hunter," Sam argues. "It's Bobby."

"Yeah, well, it was Pastor Jim before. And Dad. How do we know Bobby's not the next person on our Christmas card list to be sipping the old man's Kool-Aid?"

"You really think _Bobby_ is going to be reporting to _Dad?_" Sam asks skeptically. "Seriously? _Bobby?_! Dean, last time they were in the same _state_ the man _shot_ him. Do you remember picking the buckshot outta Dad's ass? All the things he said he'd do before _ever_ throwing in with Bobby Singer again? 'Cause I sure do."

And yeah, when he puts it like that, it does sound kind of paranoid. After all, John'd be lucky to get Bobby to pick up the phone for him, much less to turn on Sam with nothing but his say-so to go on. Still...

"All I'm saying is, we've been burned before," Dean tells him, tacking on a half-amused shrug as the pun hits him. "Well, y'know, _almost_."

Sam grimaces.

"Dude, even for you?"

"What, too soon?" Dean asks, offering up a weak grin.

Sam is, predictably, unmoved by Dean's attempt to lighten the mood.

"Look," his brother forces out, swallowing hard to shove the words past the sting of smoke and cinder, "if Bobby's not in our corner, we need to know now. And if he _is_, we'd be stupid not to take advantage of that. Things are just getting worse out there, and it's not going to stop until _we_ stop it. To do that, we're going to need intel. We're gonna need research and resources, and I know you're not gonna wanna hear this, Dean, but somewhere along the line, we're gonna need backup. Who else can we trust for all that if not him?"

Dean turns that over in his mind, lips pursed. It's true that, outside of Dad, Bobby's probably their best bet of tracking down this demon. Everything the hunters on his phone tree know, Bobby knows and then some. Research and word of mouth are the tools of his trade, and right now, Sam and Dean could use a good helping of both. Dad's research has been reduced to cinders, their look-out guy is dead, and Dean's contact list is now a catalogue of people he'd like to avoid at all costs. All they've got is whatever of Dad's research Sam managed to save to the net and some cryptic whispers from the demonic rumor mill. Dean wouldn't say 'no' to having a little bit more to go on than that.

"At the very least," Sam adds quietly, "we should let him know we're okay. He sounded really worried."

And yep, there comes the guilt. Because Bobby really _has_ been good to them. He was there for them after Louisiana, after Stanford, through this whole long damn year when Dad was nowhere to be found. He gave them the lead that got them the Colt, and it's not like Dean doesn't _want_to trust him. He wants to. He wants to believe _so bad_ that Bobby's still on their side, that he's still someone they can turn to, still the man Dean always thought he was. But Dean's been wrong before, _keeps_ being wrong, and he doesn't know if he can take it again. Doesn't know if he'll be able to handle giving up on Bobby, too.

But Sam's right. They do need to know, and God help them, if they're wrong about Bobby, they need to know now.

"Fine," Dean grits out. "Fine, I'll make the damn call."

He digs his phone out from under the seat and flips through his contacts until he gets to Bobby's name. It only takes two and a half rings for him to pick up.

"This better be demon-goddamn-you callin' to ransom the Ark of the fuckin' Covenant."

"Hey, Bobby," Dean says. "Good to hear from you, too. I'm doin' fine. Sam says 'hi'—"

"Shut up, smartass," Bobby growls. "Or better yet, tell me why the hell every dumbass named Winchester decided not to pick up their goddamn phone for two goddamn days?"

"That's, uh..." Dean trails off, rubbing at the back of his neck.

He glances at Sam, raising an eyebrow in silent question: _"__You sure about this?"_

Sam nods.

"That's kinda hard to get into over the phone," Dean says finally, scrubbing a hand over his face. "If you're at home, we're about an hour out."

"I'll leave the porch light on."


	59. Chapter 59

Hey, guys! Thanks for reading! Just to let you know, we're going to have to take a break from posting from now until the end of May due to grad school. We'll be cooking up plenty of heartbreak and pain for the Winchesters during that time, so make sure to check back on May 31st to find out what's coming at them next! We've got some cool stuff planned, and we can't wait to get to it!

* * *

><p>By the time they pull up into Sioux Falls, the rain has let up to a soft, gray drizzle. Under the darkened sky, the lights of Bobby's house shine like a beacon, warm and bright and inviting, but Dean knows better than to find comfort in the familiarity, knows he needs to keep an eye out and a hand on his piece, no matter how much he wants to believe that Sam's right when he says they can trust Bobby.<p>

Through the streaks of raindrops slipping down his fogged-up window, he spots a blue and white Ford pickup parked on the lawn next to Bobby's Chevelle. It's old but in too good a shape to be one of his junkers. It's gotta belong to somebody else, and then it clicks where Dean's seen that truck before. Whose it is.

"That's Ellen Harvelle's," he tells Sam in a low voice, car idling at the foot of Bobby's unpaved driveway. "He didn't tell us she was gonna be here."

Sam licks his lips, his hands drawing into bloodless fists, and Dean can see the guilt in his eyes, the weight of responsibility weighing down on his shoulders. They haven't talked about what happened to Ash, but Dean knows his brother well enough to know Sam been beating himself up for it. He wouldn't blame Sam if he wanted to take off just as bad as Dean does right now.

"Okay," Sam says shakily. "That's good."

Dean raises an eyebrow.

"Good?"

"Yeah," Sam answers, sounding more sure of himself this time through the lingering rasp of smoke and soot. "That last message... Ash said he found something important. If anybody'd know what it was, it'd be Ellen. She could be able to help us."

"Or she could want your head as a hood ornament and we could be walking right the fuck into an ambush," Dean counters tightly. "We don't know."

"And we _won't_know if we take off now," Sam argues. "We can't run forever, Dean."

He's got a point, but goddammit, Dean still doesn't like this.

"Just for the record," he says as they roll up the driveway, tires jostling on the uneven dirt, "I'm not leavin' your ass alone in there. I don't care that you're fine. I don't care that it's Bobby's. You're not crossing the _street_ without me holding your goddamn hand."

"That's okay," Sam says softly, rubbing his palms over the thighs of his jeans. "S'not like I'm arguing."

He's rattled, too, Dean thinks as he watches his brother worry his lip between his teeth. He'd be crazy _not_to be after everything they've been through in the past few days. But he's also right. They can't run from this. They can't put their heads in the sand and pretend they didn't make this mess, can't hide from hunters and demons alike for the rest of their goddamn lives, tuck themselves away in some tiny town like Elkins did, paranoid and terrified and waiting for that day when someone finally catches up. Even if Dean thought it'd work, that's not who they are. They're hunters, dammit, and more than that, they're Winchesters.

Winchesters aren't cowards. They're a lot of things, a lot of horrible stupid _fucked-up_ things, but not that. Never that.

But, Dean reminds himself as he tucks the Colt into his jacket pocket, touches the .45 at the small of his back for reassurance, double checks the spare mag in his jeans, the silver knife sheathed in his sleeve, there's a difference between being brave and being stupid, just like there's a difference between trusting someone and having a lick of good goddamn sense. It was Bobby who'd taught 'em that.

"It'll be fine," he assures, just as much for himself as for Sam. "We know Bobby. Know Ellen. Know what we're walkin' into here."

"And if they turn on us, I can always Force punch 'em into next week," Sam says bleakly, picking at the fraying, soot-stained edges of a hole in the knee of his jeans.

"Sam…" Dean starts.

"Too soon?" Sam jokes weakly, looking up at Dean and more lost than he remembers him looking in a long time.

"Two things. And I'm only gonna say 'em once, so listen up," Dean says.

He turns in the front seat, digs an extra magazine for Sam's Taurus out of the back and offers it to him with a serious look as his little brothers straightens up, comes out of the hole he's dug himself in the front seat just a little.

"One: Leave the bad jokes to me, 'cause you suck at 'em," Dean lists, slapping the mag into his brother's palm as he pockets the keys to the Impala.

"And two?" Sam asks as he shoves the ammo into his pocket with the sad, sickly ghost of a half-smile.

"Two, stop talkin' shit about your badass Jedi tricks. I mean, I know you missed out on most of the looks, charm, and general awesome our gene pool had to offer," Dean breezes, digging up a grin for Sammy's benefit, "but hey, you can move shit with your mind. As far as consolation prizes go, it's a hell of a lot better than a lifetime supply of Turtle Wax."

"Dean—"

"No," Dean stops him with a tug on the sleeve of his jacket. "I'm serious. Stop talking about yourself like you're a bomb about to go off."

"I_am_." Sam laughs, more than a little hysterically. "Did you see what I did back there, Dean? Did you miss the fact that I blew up a building just by _thinking_ about it?"

"You saved my ass," Dean argues sharply. "And yours and Dad's, for all that he did jack shit to deserve it. Your spoonbending bein' the only thing keepin' me on the burgers and Busty Asian Beauties side of the mortal coil isn't somethin' I'm gonna call a bad thing any time soon."

Dean fists a hand in his brother's collar. The more they fucking rehash this the more can still smell the smoke, feel the scorching air burning his lungs, rasping across his skin as the flames jump, lash, leave screaming, searing brands as they creep up, close in. The only thing chasing away the panic, the only thing keeping him here and calm and sane is Sam, sad and sooty and still smelling like a Christmas ham that's been left in the oven 'till New Year's, but _here_ and _alive_ and under his fingers all the same.

"Dean…" Sam murmurs, and it might be in protest or it might be in agreement or it might be because his brother just doesn't know what else to fucking say, but none of that matters because Sam matches it with getting a hand in Dean's jacket. Those same faint, tugging fingers pulling at his sleeve that have always been there, always been right behind him, right at his side, always his and always there, no matter what and he almost— he almost was—

And it's just too damn much, with demons and Dad and the goddamn fire and Sam on the other side of that door, almost lost forever as searing, scorching iron keeps them apart and the flames close in, and Dean just snaps, drags his little brother across the seat and to him, arms thrown tight around his stupid, too-broad shoulders as he winds his fists in Sam's hair and Sam's jacket and Sam's _everything_ and holds tight and just tries to goddamn _breathe_.

"Shut up," he mumbles into his little brother's collar as he feels the shape of his name against his shoulder through flannel and leather.

He just needs this, needs to feel heartbeats and lungfuls and a pulse, stubborn and steady and strong beneath filthy skin and tangled, sweat-soaked brown curls. Fuck pride. Fuck reputations and being manly and every goddamn thing Dad ever drilled into them about this shit, because he almost lost this. This, the one thing he needs like _breathing_. This was almost gone, forever, with no chance of coming back, so fuck anyone who's watching.

Fuck anyone and everything because Sam is holding on just as tight, dragging in breaths that are just as ragged, digging into this just as deep as he locks shaking fingers around the cord of his amulet like he never, ever wants to let go, and that's good, _great_. Mean's Dean's not alone in this, not the only irrevocably fucked-up one here, shivering and shaking in the front seat after a close call like it's his first time in the goddamn saddle, like he just wants to crawl in close, bury himself in the only safe place he's ever known and not come out until the danger's passed.

"Dean," Sam starts again, voice smoke-scratchy and muffled in his brother's collarbone, "I—"

"Shut up," Dean repeats raggedly. He drags Sam up with the hand fisted in the curls at the base of his brother's neck, the only place other than a trigger his fingers will always, always belong. "Just… shut up."

Sam's head tips forward, their foreheads touching, cheeks brushing, a sticky, sooty mess of bangs and breaths and eyelashes as pulses slow and panic ebbs and hands make last slow, reassuring passes over the only other worthwhile thing in the goddamn world.

"Stay sharp," Dean murmurs, "and fucking… fucking don't let yourself outta my sight for a while, alright?"

"Deal," Sam breathes.

Dean pulls away, drops back against the seat, and scrubs his hands over his face with an exhausted exhale. Sam clears his throat, looks first at Dean then back up at the house, his hand landing on the door latch like a man condemned.

"Come on, Sammy." Dean gets a reassuring hand on Sam's shoulder as he checks his weapons one last time. "I got your back."


	60. Chapter 60

Aaaaand we're back! Did'ya miss up? ;)

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><p>They climb out of the car, silent except for the sounds of raindrops pattering against their jackets and the squelch of their boots in the mud. From his shelter under the front porch, Rumsfeld greets them with a lazy, welcoming woof. Dean barely has a chance to set foot on the steps before the screen door creaks open, and then Bobby's standing there, face set in a hard expression Dean would call disapproval if he didn't know how to read the relief in his eyes.<p>

"Well," the old hunter grumbles, "it's about time you two chuckleheads decided to turn up."

"Bobby," Sam rasps cautiously, voice a wrecked croak as he gives the older hunter a nod.

"You got company?" Dean cuts right to the chase, jerking his head at the Harvelle's pickup on the lawn.

"Ellen and Jo." Bobby nods, offering his Holy Water flask to Sam and Dean for proofing sips before he waves them through the door and into the familiar, research-strewn warmth of his living room. "Showed up as soon as they got everything squared away for the arson investigation."

"Arson?" Sam croaks, color draining from his face as he freezes, stares at Bobby, mouth open in horror.

"She said it was demons." Dean glares, keeping a hand at Sam's elbow, his brother safe and near and his hand just itching for the familiar weight of a piece, his or Sam's or the goddamn Colt or anything, anything to squash the feeling of the walls closing in, the trap shutting, the tromp of enemies at the gate. "Ellen's message said it was demons. You're tellin' us this was another fire? Another _demon_ fire?"

"Too soon to tell for sure," Bobby hedges, "but it sure as hell looks like it."

"When did it happen?" Sam demands, voice sharp for all that it sounds like it's been run through a cheese grater. "When _exactly?_ Did they see who did it? Do they know who was possessed?"

"We can do the hunter share-and-care after you boys get some goddamn rest," Bobby gravels, looking from Sam to Dean and putting on his best 'Listen to Your Goddamn Elders, Ya Idjits' face. "El and Jo are sacked out in the back bedroom. They won't be good to go over the details for a while yet. 'Till then, you two set up in the master upstairs, catch some fuckin' shuteye. I'll mind the phones."

"Bobby—" Sam protests, and for all that it sounds like the kid's only got a couple sentences left in him, Dean is pretty goddamn with him on this one.

If Yellow Eyes is making it his mission to hit as many of their contacts as quick as possible, if this is part of something bigger, deadlier, something targeting anyone and everyone they've ever cared about, they need to know and they need to know _now_, dammit.

"Fire or no, what happened happened," Bobby cuts him off. "Ain't gonna un-happen just 'cause you get a few hours sleep, and you ain't gonna learn any more about it by keepin' awake, I can promise you that. Ellen and Jo've got the intel you need, but they're not givin' it for a few hours yet. 'Til then you got nowhere to go and nothin' to do but rest up and wait."

They open their mouths to argue, but Bobby's right there, cutting them off for all he's worth.

"Now you want answers? You want leads?" he challenges. "Well then, you turn your tails back out that door, get your goddamn things, and set up for some rest before you fall the fuck over and get soot and sulfur all over my clean goddamn floors."

Sam and Dean look down to the dusty, salty planks beneath their feet, scattered here and there with escaped shreds of herbs and loose scraps of research.

"Clean, huh?" Dean can't help but grin as Sam tries to hide his smile with some industrious nose-scratching.

"It's a relative term, smartass." Bobby glowers. "Now make yourself useful and unload the damn bags, let your brother head on up for some rest. Boy looks like he's about to drop."

"I'm fine," Sam rasps defensively, drawing closer to Dean just as Dean snags a handful of his brother's jacket, angles himself in front of Sam on instinct, on the memories of trading what he knows for what he knew, on following orders and trusting elders and ending up drugged _here_ while Sam burns _there_, him on one side of the door and his brother on the other and hell, _hell_ if he falls for that one a second fucking time.

"Sure, and only my ass can prevent forest fires." Bobby snorts, rolling his eyes at Sam's protest. "Suit yourself, but you pass out on my porch, I'm not helpin' haul your ass upstairs."

He shrugs, waving them on as he stomps into the kitchen and starts rummaging through cabinets.

"Be an idjit about it. Bunk in the yard with Rumsfeld for all I care."

Dean tries to not be relieved, tries not to relax at the familiar annoyance and dismissal, at this one, tiny sign that this isn't about to blow up in their faces just like every other damn thing in their lives always does.

Of course, that tiny ghost of relief only lasts about as long as it takes them to get back to the Impala, for Dean to snag their duffels and Sam's not-getting-fucking-sepsis-on-my-watch meds and slam the door and catch his little brother looking a little more longingly at the driver's seat than he has, well, _ever._

"You can't be serious." Dean snaps, dropping the duffels on the gravel of Bobby's drive and setting the pharmacy bag down on top with a sharp, plastic-y crinkle. "You were the one who was all gung ho about coming here in the fucking first place! What about _intel?_ What about _resources?_ What about 'We owe this to Bobby, _Dean?!_"

"It was a _fire_, Dean," Sam rasps. "What if this is some new coordinated attack thing? Or if this is the next step in Yellow Eyes' big goddamn plan? Either way, we're putting them all at risk just by being here. We can't do that to Bobby, Dean. We can't do that to Ellen and Jo, not after everything they just lost! Not after helping us out got Ash and everyone else in that place killed!"

"We don't know—"

"Bullshit!" Sam snaps, eyes sharp. "Jim and Ellen's, burning in the same way in the same night? Bull_shit_ we don't know. And I don't know about you, but I'm not gonna walk in there and risk a repeat of Jim's without letting them know _exactly_ what they're in for!"

"What, you talkin' full disclosure?" Dean sputters. "The psychic kids, Yellow Eyes' big goddamn plan? Sam, are you _nuts?!_"

"Bobby's already got the broad strokes, Dean," Sam counters. "Ellen, too, if she knows even a little of what Ash was up to. They deserve to know what's after us. They deserve to know what they're in for if they work with us, and they- they deserve a _choice_, Dean!"

"And what choice is that, Sam?" Dean demands.

"The choice to either get out now or stick around and become just another body on the ceiling!" Sam snaps, cutting quick and deep, and goddamnit, did he have to- have to-

"The body count's been too high for too goddamn long now, Dean!" Sam presses urgently. "And if they're all we've got left, I'm not gonna douse them in fucking gasoline and start playing with matches! Not with our luck being what it's been lately!"

"So knowing us should come with a goddamn warning label now, huh?" Dean gravels, sharp and angry and hating how right Sam is, how true it is that they just keep going and getting people killed, _good_ people, people who were just trying to live their lives, people they were meant to protect, to _save._

"… Beats the alternative," Sam murmurs after a long, painful pause.

Dean knows where his head's at right now, knows because he's there too, right back in that church and right back with that baby, soft, and sweet and innocent and just another life they failed to save. Just another innocent who burned for the unforgivable sin of knowing them, trusting them, sticking around long enough for the demons to catch on, catch up, rip another family apart, another world to shreds, and burn it to ashes.

Every safe haven they've found, every place they've stopped to catch their breath, to go to ground- Jim's… the Roadhouse… Stanford… God, even as far back as Lawrence…

It's hard to argue with twenty plus years of everyone and everything that's ever meant anything to any of them going up in smoke.

The demons got Mom. They got Jess. They got that baby. Her parents. Jim's church.

Is Dean really willing to risk Bobby on those odds? Everything he's ever been to them on the half-hope that as long as they don't stick around, as long as they move along quick, he'll be safe? That he and Ellen and Jo won't get caught in the crossfire? Won't be just as valid targets as Jim or Jess or Mom?

"Fine." Dean sighs, scrubbing a hand across his face, agreeing but hating himself for it because it makes sense. It makes sense for Bobby and Ellen and Jo and anyone who's ever meant anything to them, who's at risk, but there's still a big problem with this whole damn line of thinking. If Sam hasn't hit on it yet, he's _gonna_, and that's almost worse in a way. "Full disclosure. Whatever you want, just…"

"What?" Sam blinks when Dean trails off, glares daggers at the gravel of Bobby's drive as he tries to find the words that aren't too- too _paranoid_ or _over-protective_ or goddamn _needy_ to say without forfeiting his fucking Man Card.

"Just promise me I'm not gonna go to sleep and find out you made for the state line in one of Bobby's goddamn junkers, okay?" he snaps, his head jerking up and eyes searing into Sam's.

Saying _they're_ cursed because of the demon thing, that _they're_ better off alone, better off cutting ties and warning contacts because of what _they_ are isn't quite right, is it? Because Dean's not the one with the blood. He's not the one with the powers or the visions or the Big Goddamn Destiny.

Sam is.

And all those rules, all those reasons Bobby and Ellen and Jo are at risk, deserve a choice, should be kept at arm's length, they apply to Dean, too. Could work just as well for Sam's brother as they could for any no-name hunter they pick a lead from at a truck stop on some lonely stretch of Interstate. Except that's_total fucking bullshit_, and if Sam thinks he can "Fair and Balanced Choice" his way into ditching Dean like an ugly hookup the morning after, he's got another goddamn think coming.

"I- I promise." Sam blinks, caught off-guard. "Dean, I wasn't thinking- That's- that's not where I was going with this, okay? Swear to god."

Dean pins him with a look, and Sam draws himself up, squares off.

"Maybe it means I'm putting you in danger," Sam says, voice wrecked and face weary, but solid. Determined. "Maybe it means that I'm _weak_ and _selfish_ and one day your blood is gonna be on _my_ hands, but all I could think about in that goddamn panic room, as the smoke started coming in under the door and the walls started getting hot and it looked like no one, and I mean _no one_, was coming for me, was that I had you. I had you and only you, and I'd spent the last night we'd ever have together on some stupid, petty fight."

Dean wishes he didn't know what his brother was talking about. Wishes that didn't sound exactly like what he thought those last few days in that cage in Louisiana, counting the days in bites on his skin and how far the sinking, seeping chill of blood loss was creeping up his limbs, the only thoughts he could string together one long, lonely chain of regrets. How badly he'd screwed it up with Sammy. How bad he felt for leaving things with the kid like they were. Hating that he'd never get the chance to make it right.

"I won't ask you to stay." Sam sighs, looking up through the gray morning light and shoving his hands in his pockets. "You've got the choice, same as Bobby or Ellen or Jo. But I'm tellin' you right now, Dean, I-I'm not- I don't have it in me to go."

Sam shakes his head, swallowing thickly.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm sorry if this makes me an awful person, but after that, after _all_ of that— If you're still here, I'm- I'm not gonna fight you on it."

"Yeah, well see that you fucking don't, okay?" Dean grumbles through a sigh of relief, more thankful for one of Sam's girly speeches than he's ever been for anything in his life as he snatches up their bags and starts back up the drive. "And do your breathing exercises."

"Seriously?" Sam laughs faintly from behind Dean before tracking up the gravel after him, trying and failing to steal his duffle from Dean.

"Every hour, on the hour, bitch." Dean smirks as Sam rolls his eyes though his first held breath, flipping Dean the bird as they stomp across Bobby's porch.

"I'm gonna take that finger as a 'jerk' and move on." Dean chuckles, digging in the pharmacy bag with big-brotherly glee as they make their way to upstairs bedroom. "Now take your fucking rescue inhaler. No goddamn point to it if it's in the bag and not on you at all fucking times."

"Dean, I'm not carrying that," Sam scoffs before taking another breath and holding it.

"What? You afraid the other hunters are gonna make fun of you?" Dean snorts, dumping their stuff on the floor and flopping onto the worn floral quilt.

"Yeah, a hunter with a rescue inhaler and panic attacks," Sam says acerbically. "_I'd_ make fun of me. This is _hunting_, Dean, not the Special Olympics."

"What's the big deal? Think someone's gonna shove you in a locker? Give you a swirlie?" Dean teases, nudging Sam's hip with his foot as the kid digs his shower stuff from his duffle. "Come on, Sammy, a Purple Nurple's not that bad."

"Like you'd know." Sam snorts.

"Well, hey, if anyone makes fun of you, you tell me." Dean chuckles, settling down for a doze as Sam heads into the attached bathroom, pulling the door shut behind him. "I'll take 'em out behind the bleacher and kick their ass. It'll be just like old times."

"You suck!" Sam calls from the other room over the sound of the shower kicking on.

"Do your breathing exercises!" Dean shouts back, snickering as Sam pounds the wall in his general direction.


	61. Chapter 61

I feel like I should warn you guys about this chapter, but I don't even know what to say, haha! Have fun?

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><p>Of course, now that Dean's horizontal and in a bed for the first time since that hospital outside of Blue Earth, the last licks of chemical hangover reminding him exactly how awesome sleep is as an institution, Bobby's comfy-soft pillows in their neat, embroidered cases under his head, <em>now<em> is when he can't turn his damn brain off. Now, when he's finally got the chance to catch his first real, non-drugged Z's in who knows how long, he just… can't.

Not with the itch of ash and medical tape on his skin. Not with cinders from the fire still on his clothes, in his hair, smeared across his skin and mingling with rain and sweat to cover him with an inky-fine coat of grime, and okay, maybe he's gonna catch hell from Sam or Bobby or both for tracking this crap into bed without even taking his boots off, but he's tired, dammit.

In the last twenty-four hours, Dean's been drugged, kidnapped, scared to death, and forced to beat the shit out of his out-of-his-damn-mind father to save his definitely-not-the-Bad-Seed brother from a burning building while Minister McRoofie cooled his heels and the civvies they all did their damndest to save burned. And then he'd followed it all up with doctors and _sepsis_ and Sam thinking he's poison, a _curse_, too dangerous to be around but needing Dean too much to care.

And you know what? Ninety percent of that might have the makings of a pretty bad goddamn day, but that last part? Sam putting it out there that no matter what, they're in this together?

That part had felt good.

Maybe it means they're both screwed up, but if it means not lying awake tonight, scared that he's gonna close his eyes and open 'em to find Sam not there, he'll take screwed up and be glad for it.

Better to be screwed up than afraid. Better to fighting demons with Sam than falling apart without him.

In the face of Dad going off the deep end, with demons closing in and their research going up in smoke and every lead they've got pointing at Mom, _Dean's mom_, having done something awful, something unthinkable, years before he or Sammy was even born, at least he's got that.

At least he's got Sam.

Sam and a powerful need to get in that shower sometime this century.

"Sammy," Dean calls through the door, toeing off his boots and shucking his button-down. "Get the lead out, already. You're gonna use up all the hot water."

"Go away, Dean," Sam calls back, voice a little higher, a little tighter than can be blamed on smoke inhalation. A little less burned and a little more embarrassed than just washing up demands.

Dean leans closer, hint of a smile his face breaking into a full-blown grin as he listens, finds the sound of Sam moving through the steady, constant spray of the shower, picks out the familiar, rhythmic slip of hand against skin in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with getting clean.

"Somethin' wrong, Sammy?" Dean asks through the door, hint of a tease slipping into his voice as he leans against the warm, worn wood. "Need big brother's help?"

"You _suck_," Sam groans, voice thick with frustration as the sounds pick up pace, move faster with, apparently, nothing to show for it.

"You should be so lucky." Dean snorts.

He leans casually against the door and gets nice and comfy for this part.

"Come on, Sammy," Dean cajoles lazily, laughter just sneaking into the edge of his voice as he tilts his head against the door, listens for Sam. "Relax. Quit _thinking_ so much. Turn that big brain off for a minute and just let it _come_."

"I hate you," Sam grumbles under the spray, but Dean can hear his pace slowing, less frantic, less frustrated, slower, lazier, and that has him leaning in, pressing on through the door.

"I know you do," he hums, voice lazy and low, and laughing, just a little, as he imagines Sam red-faced and frustrated, beneath the spray. "Let's go, Sammy. Show big brother what you're made of."

"Ugh, you're _awful_," Sam moans heavily_._

"I know I am." Dean chuckles as he hears Sam's breaths pick up, deepen.

"Come on, little brother. Wrist loose. Grip tight. Pull like you mean it," he coaches, letting out just a hint of a soft, deep laugh against the faded paint. "We don't got all day here."

"Hate. You." Sammy groans, voice heavy, deep. Deep like Dean almost never hears it outside of a fight, breaths pitched low and urgent beneath the hush of the shower.

"Sure you do." Dean nods, grinning for days as he leans into it. "Gonna get raw at this rate, little brother. Come on, let go. Just let it feel good. Have some _fun_. You remember fun, right, Sammy?"

"Dean—" Sam gasps, his voice raw, ragged, deep and dark and if he's asking Dean to stop or go on, it doesn't matter because they're both in this now.

"Now that blonde at the last bar we were at?" Dean continues over Sam's groan, that mad, persistent pull of hand against head, pulling, pulling, driving higher, higher. "_She_ was fun. Legs for days and a mouth like a fuckin' Hoover. Swear, I could feel it in my _toes_."

Dean remembers the dark look in Sam's eyes as Dean'd poured shots into the girl, laid one on her smooth and slow against the jukebox as Sammy watched from the bar, all heady, hot hazel and silent, brooding intensity.

"You into givin' it or takin' it, Sammy?" he pants, remembering that curl of heat, feeling it for himself as his breath quickens, voice dips. "You got your fingers in your mouth right now? Or you imagining someone's mouth on your cock, goin' for all they're worth?"

"God, Dean!" Sam shouts from the other side of the door, voice dizzy, tearing, torn. His pace hot, frantic, _perfect_.

"That's right, Sammy," Dean purrs. "Pick it up, keep going. It's gonna feel good, baby brother. Gonna feel so good, you just let yourself get there."

"Dean—" Sam moans, high, hard.

"Like it rough, don'tcha Sammy?" Dean feels, grasps, pushes harder, always harder. "Need that edge?"

Sam groans on the other side of the door, raw and frantic, and it's more than enough to keep Dean going.

"You're gonna get it, Sammy," he gravels. "Get it all and more, you just keep at it a little longer."

Dean braces his hand against the battered brass doorknob as he leans, presses harder, closer, _faster_.

"Come on, baby boy. Think about it," he pushes. "That mouth on your cock. Those hands shoving you up against the tile. Holding you tight. Making you just _hurt_for it."

Sam just moans, so slow and persistent that Dean can feel it in his toes.

"Bet you're a hair puller, Sammy," he pants. "Bet you give just as good as you get."

"Dean," Sam wails, voice high, frantic.

"A little longer, Sammy. Just a little longer," he soothes, rocking against the wood.

"Dean, I can't," Sam gasps, panting in time with those sharp, staccato pulls.

"S'gonna feel so good, so good. I swear, Sam," Dean promises on a groan.

"Dean, please," Sam begs, ragged, _desperate_.

"Give it a finger, Sammy," Dean rumbles, low and deep, with a dark, devilish grin against the door. "Come on, you can do it. Know you want to."

"Dean- Dean, I can't- It's too much," Sam protests, and Dean can practically _see_ the flush on his cheeks, racing down his neck, the tangle of hair across his eyes as he pants hard and fast, close, so close—

"Come for me, baby boy," Dean rasps hard against the bathroom door.

And Sam _does_, comes with an echoing, punched out groan and the sharp sound of a skull knocking against tile. Fuck, Dean can _hear it_, can hear his brother gasping for breath under the spray, can hear the pitiful little moans catching in his throat, and Dean's shoved up tight against the door, panting open-mouthed against the wood, death grip on the knob as his hips keep pressing, rocking, dragging rough denim over his cock, harsh and hard and good and- and _God_—

—God, he just shot off in his jeans like a freaking teenager. _Holy shit_.

He just- He—

Holy. _Shit._

And before Dean can process that - _any _of that - he hears the heavy sound of Bobby's boots coming down the hallway and then the other hunter is swinging the bedroom door open without even pausing to knock, because of course. _Of course_, Dean thinks a little hysterically, what could Sam and Dean _possibly_ be getting up to in here that Bobby'd need to worry about interrupting?

"Pulled some towels out of the dryer," Bobby starts before stopping short to stare at Dean. "What the hell're _you_ doin'?"

Dean lets go of the doorknob and takes a quick step back, trying his very best to look like he didn't just embarrass himself all over Bobby's fine wood paneling and praying to every deity known to man that Bobby doesn't decide to look down. The man as good as raised two teenaged boys. He knows _exactly _what it looks like when someone's standing around with a load in their pants. Hell, if he didn't know Bobby'd been smoking for the past forty years, Dean would say he could _smell _it.

"He's takin' too long," Dean mumbles, jerking a thumb toward the bathroom. "I gotta pee."

"And you couldn't use the one _downstairs_?"

"Well, yeah," Dean says lamely, "but it's... far."

"It's _far_," Bobby repeats skeptically.

"Mm," Dean confirms with a shrug, grabbing the stack of towels out of his hands and trying to figure out whether holding them down over his crotch would help or hurt this situation.

Turns out that "instant karma" thing is a real bitch when you're on _this_ end.

Bobby's still fixing him with a look like maybe Dean got himself concussed and didn't mention it when the bathroom door opens a crack and one of Sam's freaking gorilla arms sneaks out, wet and dripping, to snag a towel off the top of the stack before shutting the door again with a click. A couple of seconds later, Sam comes striding out of the bathroom behind him, the towel slung around his waist.

"Shower's free," he says breezily as he crosses the room to dig in his duffle.

Like everything's totally and completely normal, the little _shit_. Dean gapes incredulously at Sam's stupid casual shoulders, glances back to see Bobby still watching him with raised eyebrows, and promptly hightails it into the bathroom, taking his pile of towels and his damp jeans with him.

He peels himself out of his soaked underwear with a grimace, cursing the dangerous tag team of opportunity knocking and his hyperactive goddamn Downstairs Brain, which haven't betrayed him so thoroughly since that waitress in Tampa. He'd joke about taking a long, cold shower if the length of Sam's little jerk-off session hadn't made that the only possibility.

Which… Well, that- that happened.

That was a thing. A thing that happened. That happened and had Dean coming hard and fast against a goddamn _door_ of all things, and somehow, somehow they found the one thing in all of creation that they've never done together and just- just fucking _went_ for it.

Hard.

And Dean can lie to himself about a lot of things. A lot of awful, fucked up, can't-stare-'em-in-the-eye-or-I'll-go-out-of-my-goddamn-mind things, but what happened back there?

Well, it's pretty hard to ignore that it gave a solid kick to his goddamn Downstairs Brain, sent a sharp, heady, breath-hitching, toe-curling flood through his whole body. A soft, dark whisper, the kind that belongs in bars and between bedsheets, breathily quiet and brutally honest as it pushes, urges:_ 'Let's do that again.'_

Teasing Sam is one thing, but that part?

That came of out fucking nowhere, Dean thinks as he steps into the freezing water with a wince.

Except... that's not really true, is it? That had to come from _somewhere_. Where, Dean has no idea, but—

He pauses halfway through lathering a dollop of shampoo into his scalp and frowns.

He'd like to just shrug and say 'That was weird,' but... that's not exactly true either. And he'd say it's something different, but _is_ it? Because Dean doesn't feel anywhere near as surprised about how that turned out as he should, and he can't figure out _why_. It doesn't _feel_ like it came out of nowhere or like it's an entirely _new _idea, but it's definitely not an _old _one. It's- That was- a thing. That happened.

That was definitely a thing that happened.

That's about as much as Dean can process right now. That and the fact that he's got cold, stinging suds running down into his eyes, which doesn't really help him with this particular predicament.

Sam's waiting in the next room. Dean can picture him sitting there on the edge of the bed, eyebrows drawn together in thought as he prepares to dissect this whole situation, and for once, Dean thinks he'd actually appreciate that. It'd be nice to know _one _of them has some answers here. He's looking forward to hearing whatever his brother comes up with, 'cause Dean? Yeah, Dean's got nothin'.

Except when he dries off and goes back into the bedroom, he finds Sam completely zonked out instead, taking up two-thirds of the bed and dripping all over Dean's pillow. Totally useless.

Dean sits on the edge of the bed and stares down at his damp, snoring mess of a big little brother for a long time, turning things over and over in his head until Bobby hollers up the stairs that the waffles are getting cold.

And apparently Bobby makes _waffles _now, which is definitely a sign that the whole world's gone crazy and Dean needs to just stop questioning it.


	62. Chapter 62

LOVED the responses to last chapter! We're glad you guys enjoyed it! Now, if only we can talk these boys into a repeat...

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><p>This is not brunch, Sam tells himself when he and Dean come downstairs and see Bobby setting a plate of eggs on the table next to what looks to be a whole pig's worth of breakfast meat and enough waffles to feed an army.<p>

Years ago, Bobby lost it all and rebuilt his life around finding out everything he could about the things that went bump in the night, to ending them and dealing back a little of the hurt that'd been dealt him. Ellen and Jo, who are setting the table like it's just another night at the Roadhouse, are steeped in the life to their bones, the center of a world built on being harder and meaner than the things in the shadows, striking out at them before they can land the first blow.

And him and Dean?

Well, even when Sam didn't know it, back before Dad and Dean ever came clean about nightmares being real and alive and out there and _hungry_, he was still a Winchester. Still a hunter. He's never known anything but life being the interval between one monster and the next, living and breathing salt and iron, faking his way through the light so that when darkness falls he can be what he needs to be to survive, to cut away at just a little bit of the blackness that preys on the poor, oblivious bastards that wander too close.

They're hunters, all of them. Hard and sharp and lethal to the bone, which is why, whatever this is – being served around lunchtime with waffles and an egg dish – it's _not_ brunch.

For God's sake, hunters don't have _brunch_.

Dean seems to have taken the world going crazy in stride, silently following Bobby's grunted demand that he dig out napkins from the pantry instead of standing there starin' at the waffle iron like he's lost his damn mind.

Honestly? Sam's with Dean on this one. Forget apocalyptic psychic powers and clamoring demon hordes. Bobby Singer not only having but knowing how to use a waffle iron?

The end really is nigh.

And speaking of… Well, there's no way to be sure. After all, he and Dean had only spent the one afternoon with her and Jo, so it might not even be an unusual thing, but he could swear that Ellen's… that she has on…

But even thinking about it is rude and invasive and a little weird, so Sam just kills that thought where it begins and passes a cup of coffee to Dean before making for the mismatched chairs surrounding the battered kitchen table.

"So, have I taken one too many to the head?" Dean murmurs as he slides into the seat between Sam and Jo, too low for Bobby or Ellen to hear at the counter. "Or is your mom wearing—"

"Lipstick?" Jo bites out under her breath, eyes snapping to Dean as she moodily fiddles with one of the knives on the table. "Yeah, can we _not?_"

"No, yeah. Totally," Dean blusters as Sam tries not to snicker into his coffee. Of course Dean noticed, and more than that, of course he noticed _and_ was dumb enough to bring it up to Jo of all people.

Jo who, on top of being fiercely loyal to her father's memory, just had her house burned down and probably isn't taking too kindly to her mom not even talking about it, much less doing what might just be the Ellen Harvelle equivalent of pearls and a Sunday dress, no matter who it's for.

"Okay, I'm gonna go sit by Sam, now," Jo says tightly, shooting a dirty look in Dean's direction as she shoves away from the table and nearly bowls her mother over as she stomps around to take the seat on Sam's other side.

Sam just rolls his eyes and adds more creamer to his coffee as Dean nails him with a "What the hell was that?" look. Dean takes a sullen gulp of his own coffee and shifts sharply in his chair so that his elbow jostles Sam's ribs and their knees bang together beneath the table.

Any other day, Sam would elbow him right back or land a good stomp right on the peak of his instep, but that hit, that touch… It's the first one since the shower, since Sam came so hard he nearly screamed, Dean's name on his lips and his words in his head, hot and filthy and all around him for all that there was door, for all that it was just words. God, though, _those_ words, those words in Dean's voice, coaxing and coaching and never holding back, never flinching.

Just the memory is enough to have a shiver racing down Sam's spine, quick and dirty, and doused only by Ellen's voice, crackling across from Sam as she takes the seat by her daughter at the listing table.

"Somethin' the matter with your seat, Josie?" Ellen asks, setting down a carton of orange juice as she sends a censorious glare Jo's way.

Jo just rolls her eyes with a sharp exhale, stabbing savagely into one of the waffles on the platter in front of her and dousing it in syrup like the fluffy, golden brown grid has personally wronged her.

Dean quirks a "Who does that remind you of?" look at Sam, nudging him in the ribs with a grin that's all big brother, and Sam shoots him a peeved glare in return, trying to hide the pink in his cheeks with his bangs as he forks eggs and bacon onto his plate.

Sam's not even sure at this point if he's glad or supremely irritated that Dean is every bit the annoying big brother he's always been, mind blowing talent at dirty talk or no. It's strangely comforting that, even if everything else in Sam's life seems to be spinning out of control at a terrifying pace, Dean will always be Sam's annoying, embarrassing big brother first, last, and always.

"Would you idjits quit makin' eyes at one another and eat your damn food already?" Bobby grumbles, standing up to grab the coffee pot and make the rounds with refills before leaning over to snag Sam's fork, using it to dump a waffle on top of the younger hunter's untouched bacon and eggs. "Got a hard few days ahead. No need to be watchin' your girlish figures."

Dean just snickers into his waffle (which is more syrup than anything else at this point. Jesus Christ, Dean...) as even Jo tries to hide her grin in a none-too-subtle swig of orange juice.

"So, Ellen—" Sam starts, turning to the older hunter across the table.

"Save it for after we eat, boy," Bobby cuts him off. "Hard enough to get you chuckleheads fed as it is. Last thing I need is you lot runnin' off after this book or those notes and lettin' perfectly good food go to waste."

Sam bites back a sigh, impatient, practically _feeling_ the clock ticking on this one.

And then Dean nudges Sam's elbow with his own, jerks his chin across the table for the salt and pepper, only for Ellen to pass them to Sam without a word. She does it without ever looking away from Bobby, too preoccupied giving him hell for keepin' lamb's blood and orange juice on the same shelf in the fridge. And Bobby—

He's in a clean shirt. With _buttons_ even.

Sam watches him give Dean a chiding thump on the back of the head when he and Jo get into a fork-fought skirmish over the last sausage link. Ellen smiles into her coffee and refills Sam's orange juice before he even knows his glass is empty

And yeah, the table's a little too small, the scarred surface more than adequate for Sumerian summoning rituals but not quite big enough to comfortably serve or seat five hunters and their appetites, but for all that the salt and pepper are in serious danger of tipping over into the waffles now, quite possibly calling up a Babylonian Elder God in the process, and the syrup's gotten lost in the no-man's-land between the coffee and OJ, for all that Sam can't scoot away from where Dean's elbow is jockeying with his on the table for the very real fear of sending Jo sprawling to the gritty, stained linoleum and out for his blood in the process, this—

This is what he'd thought family would feel like. What he was pretty sure the TV specials were promising him, beneath the toothpaste commercial smiles and camera-ready lighting.

And it's nothing like Thanksgiving with the Rosenburgs, a starched, strained scene played out while he sweated beneath the collar of his shirt, his tie strangling him just a little. It's not like Christmas at Jess's, either, and the way Sam practically caving beneath the soft, gentle smiles her mom kept sending him. The way Jess kept bragging about his grades over dinner while she – a hundred thousand times braver then Stephanie Rosenburg – snagged his hand beneath the table, gave it a reassuring little squeeze, then tucked it between her legs, just barely above her knees, like for safekeeping.

But this isn't a borrowed family or one where he hoped he could one day maybe belong in some dreamy, distant future. This is Dean, his since forever, his like breathing. This is Bobby, the next closest thing they've got to blood. This is Ellen and Jo, newcomers, sure, but wound and woven in the pattern of their lives so tight that for all that they're new to Sam and Dean, the connection, the comfort, is old.

This is the family that, if he were ever in the position to choose, if he were ever clear of Yellow Eyes' stain enough to even deserve, to even be worth risking it on—

But he can't afford to be thinking about them like this. Can't assume they'll even want anything to do with him after they learn the truth, but if they did— if somehow they all survive this, somehow manage to come out the other side—

Well, if he were ever lucky enough to have a place at a table somewhere, he'd hope it'd be this one.

And if this is it, if this is all he's ever going to get – if this is his last meal, his last borrowed family, the last little glimpse of peace he's going to be able to steal before he drops the bomb, opens the floodgates on blood and demons and powers and loses this small, fragile glimpse of home and family he's been given here – he's going to enjoy it.

He's got a home. A family. Maybe not for real, and maybe not forever, but at least until the waffles run out.


	63. Chapter 63

"Gotta say, Bobby," Dean grins, stuffing a huge triangle of waffle in his mouth, "Sam and I'dve stopped in sooner, we knew you knew your way around a waffle iron."

"Stopped in my ass," Bobby grumbles through a swig of coffee. "Winchesters. You got about as much a chance of stoppin' in when you're wanted as you do of pickin' up the damn phone when you're needed."

"Bobby…" Sam starts, sorry and solemn, because really, Bobby didn't deserve what they put him through these last couple of days, and if Sam had any way of knowing, any way of calling—

"Not that you'd have gotten through with everyone else in creation bein' on my ass the past 48," he continues, talking right over Sam's apology in what may very well be Bobby-speak for 'I'm just glad you're both alright, kid.' "Phones ringin' off the hook all goddamn night. I got Rick Don't-Even-Know-How-the-Hell-He-Got-My-Number Stevens wantin' to know if you boys are okay 'cause he heard what happened all the way down in goddamn Louisiana. Says he's gonna kick my ass and then John's, which'd be a sight. Bastard's only got the one leg."

"He's got his huntin' leg," Sam offers with a grin at the older hunter, popping a square of waffle into his mouth as Bobby snorts into his coffee and Ellen passes Jo the eggs with a smile at him across the table.

"Him hoppin' after me on that popsicle stick…" Bobby chuckles. "Now that I'd like to see."

Sam can feel Dean's bitchy "Sammy, Explain" look from his elbow and breezily ignores it as he snags the coffee pot and pours Bobby a refill.

"His wife back from deployment yet?" Sam asks, a quick grin on his face as he relishes not feeling like the outsider listening in for once, having hunting contacts Dean's never heard of, someone he knows in the business that he didn't meet on a case with Dean or Dad but all on his own, someone who remembers him. Worries about him.

"Didn't say." Bobby shrugs. "But you ever get the chance to meet her, I suggest you pass just to be on the safe side."

"She a hell of a woman?" Dean puts in, elbowing into Sam's space as he spears a piece of bacon.

"She's a Marine that married a hunter and bow-hunts big game for fun," Bobby answers flatly. "'Hell of a woman' don't even begin to cover it. And if your little brother really did pin her husband's ass to a wall in front of his whole damn crew, one of whom was her own goddamn brother, he might wanna steer clear 'til he figures out if she wants to buy him a drink or stuff his head and stick it on her mantle."

"Sam did what, now?" Jo laughs, the first genuinely non-sullen sound she's made this whole meal, as Dean chokes on his bacon.

Sam answers Dean's alarmed look with a quick head shake as he pounds him on the back, silent confirmation that it was the normal kind of wall-pinning, not the freaky psychic powers kind, and wow. Sam's life is just _so awesome_ that he and his brother even have a silent code to make that distinction.

"It's a long story," Sam dismisses with a blush, busying himself with making sure breakfast meats don't render him an only child.

"Sounds like a pretty good one." Jo grins, setting into her third waffle, but Sam doesn't take the bait, just looks back down at his plate and lets Dean and Ellen cover the half-second's awkward silence for him, because it's really not.

There was nothing good about Dad showing up on his doorstep at Stanford more than a year ago. Dropping the bomb about Dean going missing on a case, and dragging Sam to the flooded, gangrenous crater of New Orleans on his brother's tail, then dropping off the map when he decided chasing his precious vendetta against Yellow Eyes trumped the life of his own goddamn son. There was nothing good about Sam tearing after Dean, scared and desperate and fraying at the edges, falling more and more apart until he found his brother more dead than alive in the lair of that filthy vampire, caged like some kind of animal and a half-second past saving.

Past saving for anyone but Sam.

Because Sam is special. He's got black-tinged blood running through his veins, pulsing with enough power, enough potential, to snatch someone back from the beyond if he times it just right.

If he wants it enough.

Sam sighs, food cold and forgotten on his plate as he leans into Dean's shoulder against his at the small, cramped table.

Wanting, of course, has never been Sam's problem.

"Okay, Sammy?" Dean murmurs, looking to Sam and getting a warm, steadying hand on his back as Bobby rises to start clearing empty breakfast dishes from the table.

And Sam shouldn't feel the same hot, dirty pull that had him coming apart in the shower earlier, shouldn't, because Dean was just being Dean then, Sam's obnoxious big brother seeing the chance to tease Sam and taking it for all it was worth, just like he's being Dean now, strong and solid and holding Sam up, keeping him moving, breathing, standing and steady until Sam can manage it again on his own.

Sam shouldn't lean into him further, shouldn't and does and hates and loves how it makes everything, everything but his brother, vanish for one terrible, beautiful moment.

"Not really," Sam breathes, brutally honest as he steels himself for the here and now.

He meets Dean's eye, his voice a thousand miles from sure, light-years away from unafraid because he knows what comes next. Knows what could happen if the other hunters don't like what he has to tell them, if they take umbrage with even a little bit of what they're about to hear.

This could be a repeat of Pastor Jim's. Could be the first day of a lifetime being branded a freak. A monster.

Something to be hunted.

If they've got any luck, any at all, Sam's powers and Dean's paranoia could buy them enough time to at least make it to the door, to get a head start on a life on the run from anyone and everyone they've ever called 'friend.'

But then, Sam's not exactly been swimming in luck these days. The way things have been going, any of that would probably just hurt someone, carve another name into the list of people he's failed to protect and make all of this worse.

So much worse.

And there are no answers in Dean's face. There's no calm, confidant gleam in his eye, no soft, steady passes through the hair at the nape of Sam's neck, pulling him away from the outside world and into a place where it's just him and Dean and none of this can hurt him.

Instead, Dean's one rough, muscled line of tension next to him, his hand a sharp, searing brand on his back, ready to fist in Sam's jacket in an instant, a heartbeat away from dragging him behind him, from pulling his gun and breaking for the Impala and never looking back.

He's just as scared as Sam is, scared of losing Bobby and risking Ellen and Jo, of not even having this busted, broken junkyard to go to ground to. Their last tie, their last sad, sickly echo of home, blasted into so much ash and cinder.

And maybe it's better that Dean's just as scared, just as unsure as Sam is.

Sam doesn't need answers. He knows more than enough about himself, about the monsters that made him, already. He doesn't need calm, either, not when bloody, terrified determination has gotten him this far. And confidence?

He's confident enough that this is the only way to protect their friends, to save their family, that he doesn't need to know their answers going in.

As for the comfort? The steady, calloused fingers dragging through his hair, over the sparking, sensitive span of his neck?

Well, considering how things went in the shower earlier, maybe it's just as well Dean's not doing that here, either.

"Ellen," Sam sighs, after one last, long look at Dean, "We need to talk about what happened at the Roadhouse."

"Hit the brakes Sam," Bobby grumbles tossing the dishrag he'd been cleaning up with into the sink with a wet smack and digging a couple of longnecks from the fridge. "This is gonna take somethin' a hell of a lot stronger than coffee and OJ."

"El, Jo, You drinkin'?" he asks, passing the beers to Dean and Sam before looking over to Ellen and Jo.

"I'll—" Jo starts, only for Ellen to cut her off.

"Be just fine with the OJ, thank you." Ellen finishes sharply. "But if you're havin' one, I'm in."

"Mom!" Jo protests, sounding far younger than Sam knows she's got to be.

"Not another word, Johanna Beth." Ellen snaps.

"I'm twenty-one!"

"And I'm your mother," Ellen says, "and I say I don't care how old you are, anything spirit touches your lips before noon what can't be taken care of with salt and iron, I'll turn you over my knee and tan your bony hide 'till it blisters."

"Fine," Jo snaps after a long, tight look at her mother, shoving away from the table and stomping down the hall, the door to the back bedroom slamming like a shot a heartbeat later.

"I'll take that drink now, Bobby." Ellen sighs, breaking the pregnant silence as Sam follows Dean and Bobby's lead in pretending not to have seen or heard any of that.

"Yes, ma'am." Bobby nods smartly, fishing another longneck from the fridge.

"None of that, Singer," Ellen grumbles, taking a long swig. "Girls, I swear. You and John got no idea how lucky you got it."

"Maybe I should go talk to her." Sam suggests gently, Dean a silent, solemn shadow at his side. "She should be here for this, and maybe after that- maybe she'd take it better if she could talk to someone her own age?"

"You mean it'd be better if someone other than the Wicked Witch of the Midwest went after her?" Ellen sighs, running a hand through her hair, and Sam doesn't quite know what to say to that. He has no experience with mothers to begin with, much less with mothers at wit's end with their rebellious, hell-bent-on-hunting daughters.

"Sammy knows where the kid's comin' from," Dean rumbles from Sam's elbow, surprising him a little. "He'll get her back in, let her save some face, and we'll get on with this whole mess. Don't worry about it, Ellen."

"Mighty sweet of you boys." Ellen nods, takin' a heavy sip of her beer. "No guarantees how it's gonna go over, but you're welcome to try, honey."

Sam gives Ellen a nod, makes for the hall with a soft, steadying sigh. Apparently Dean was serious about not letting Sam out of his sight, because he's up and at Sam's side as he paces out of the kitchen.

"Seriously, Dean?" Sam whispers as they reach the hall. "It's_ Jo_. She's, like, twelve pounds."

"She's Ellen's daughter." Dean snorts. "That's like being twelve pounds of hurricane and napalm."

Sam can't really argue with that logic, but he makes Dean wait at the end of the hall as he goes to talk to her all the same.

"Hey, Jo?" he calls, knocking quietly on the warped, wooden door of Bobby's back bedroom.

"What do you want?" she snaps through the wood.

"Well, there's something important Dean and I need ya'll to know about. Something that might have to do with what happened at the Roadhouse. With everything. My mom and—" Sam has to swallow hard, tamp down the guilt, the pain, the sudden, insistent voice in his head screaming _'yourfaultyourfaultyourfault' _ that adds wear and weight to his words. "And with Ash. Thought you should be there when we tell everyone."

"To chime in for the kids table?" she grumbles through the door.

"Jo, you're just as much of a hunter as Dean or your mom or Bobby," Sam assures her, slow and steady.

"Easy for you to say."

"Because I've been there," Sam tells her, because he has.

He remembers what it was like to be that young, that angry, that frustrated and fed up with a parent who won't listen, won't take you seriously, and doesn't seem to care what you want in the face of their big goddamn plan for you. For all that he agrees with Ellen, can't help but react with a knee-jerk 'Hell, no!' to the thought of tiny blonde Jo in the saddle, up against the things that have reduced hunters far older and more experienced than all of them to dried blood and blackened bone, their only remembrance a shot poured to the dust and two sentences in the faded, stained ink of a hunter's journal, here and gone again with the turn of a page. Even with all of that, he does get it.

And because he gets it, because he remembers, he keeps pushing.

"I've been there," he repeats, "and I know that the first step to them treating you like an adult is you getting back out there and showing them you are one."

She opens the door, gives him a long, measuring look.

"How's that workin' out for you?" she tosses back, cocking an eyebrow at Dean, standing sentinel at the end of the hall, as a slow smirk steals across her face.

"I said you show them you're an adult." Sam chuckles, following her eye to his brother. "I never said they'd believe it."

"Let's go make 'em, then." Jo nods, starting back down the hall, back straight and shoulders set, every inch Ellen Harvelle's daughter.

Even with what he's about to drop on everyone sitting at that kitchen table, Sam can't help but duck his head to hide the tiniest of smiles as he follows her back into the other room.

"Alright, boys. Share with the class," Bobby rumbles when they're all back at the kitchen table. "What's this about?"

Sam looks to Dean, gets a nod, one last confirmation, before he takes a deep breath.

"I should probably start at the beginning," he sighs. "Ya'll know about the demon? Our house fire? How we got started?"

"Happened in your nursery, didn't it?" Ellen confirms, the soft, sad note in her voice cutting the steel of her voice, and Sam can't help but think of the salt and iron of the Roadhouse topped by the rose wallpaper and starched lace of the Harvelle apartment upstairs, can't help but wonder if Ellen, like Sam, never wanted this life for herself, much less her daughter.

"When I was six months old." Sam nods. "But it wasn't just me. These fires, these attacks, they're the exception, not the rule, and they're all part of something bigger. Something much, much bigger."

"Cut to the goddamn chase, boy," Bobby gravels. "What's the game here? What're these demons after?"

Sam opens his mouth, then closes it again. Tries, but the words just won't come.

And then he feels Dean's hand on his shoulder, the solid, comforting weight grounding him, anchoring him against the storm brewing in his head.

"Me," he breathes, and feels lighter for it.

For all that the words are lead-heavy in his mouth, for all that the cold, sharp sweat of panic is gathering at his temples and the small of his back, chasing the chills that are racing up and down his spine, saying those words out loud feels like striking back, landing a blow on the first link to the chain that binds him to Yellow Eyes, to sulfur and smoke, to blood and Boy Kings. And if this, him talking, is how he starts that, then it's time to kick off this little share fest.

"They're after me," he continues, the details spilling like rain. "Me and the children like me. The kids with house fires. The kids without."

Sam sighs, huffs out a harsh breath. In for a fucking penny…

"The kids that the Yellow Eyed Demon gave some of his blood on the night of their sixth month birthday," he grinds out, slow and deliberate, forcing himself to keep his eyes open, his head up, making himself see the shock, the horror playing across the faces around the table. "All of us. Every single one of these kids, we're- we're…"

Freaks? Monsters? Not completely human?

God, how can he be telling any of them this when he doesn't even really know himself?

How can he put into words seeing the gut-churning, mind-breaking blood and bone of nightmares splayed out in your dreams for weeks, _months_. How can he explain having the impossible happen, having dreams ignite into visions and visions burn screaming into the waking world, bright and searing and shouting every minute of every day that you're an aberration, an abomination, some half-finished monster, black-tinged blood twisting, twining, wrapping tighter and tighter as it strangles whatever humanity you've managed to hold onto.

"Different," he finishes, frustrated with the sheer, jaw-dropping inadequacy of the word in the face of- of _everything_.

"Different how?" Bobby gravels, taking a swig from his longneck.

"Psychic to start with." Sam lets a heavy breath, shoving his hands through his hair. "There are dreams, visions in my case. And- other things. Worse things."

"This ain't the time to play coy, boy," the older hunter presses.

"Bobby—" Dean warns, standing from his chair to loom at Sam's shoulder.

"I blew up Jim's church," Sam says over Dean. "Just thought about it and- _bam_."

He swallows thickly. Just the memory calls up the scorching air, the searing, sizzling burn of the concrete walls, the floors, the door itself, an inescapable prison turned broiling oven, and the door is burning him and the smoke is choking him and all he can think of- all he can ever think of, is Dean, here and gone and the last thing, the very last thing he'll ever hold on to. He remembers how damn easy it was to push the fear and panic from him out in a burst of incredible, horrifying, destructive power, because _Dean was going to die_.

"I couldn't let it end like that," Sam chokes out, breathes ragged as he bears down hard on the fear, the memories. "I couldn't just let it _end_ like that."

"That's enough, Sam." Dean's voice is a quiet rumble, his hand a solid, steady anchor on his little brother's shoulder, rubbing gently back and forth and bringing him back here, now. Where Dean is safe and with him and not going anywhere, anytime soon.

"These other children," Ellen breaks in gently, "do we know what they can do? If they're dangerous?"

"We don't know." Sam sighs, bracing his elbow on the table as he presses his fingers to the ache beginning to pound in his temples, "We've only met a couple. One was like me, psychic, but not as strong. The other- she was- was—"

"Too young," Dean gravels, cutting him off through a swig of his beer. "No way of tellin'."

"Why?" Jo demands. "Why cook up all these magic kids if there's no telling what they'll be capable of? What's the endgame here?"

"The Cliff's Notes version?" Sam huffs, picking at the label of his own half-forgotten brew. "End the world. Hell on Earth, with one of the kids leading the charge and heading up the new world order."

"Just one of 'em?"

"Wanna guess who the pick of the litter is?" Sam jokes weakly, offering Bobby a hopeless, helpless half smile.

"And Ash was helpin' you put all this together?" Ellen asks, eyes steel and voice all business as she destroys any hope Sam and Dean held of her knowing exactly what it was the other hunter found out about the psychic children that got him killed.

"He was helping us find the kids, track the demons." Sam nods, fresh wave of guilt welling up as he meets her gaze. "Ellen… Ellen, I'm sorry. We think that's why they hit the Roadhouse, why he and anyone else- why they- We got too close, learned too much, and they- they—"

"Ash was a hunter first, Sam," Ellen interrupts gently, shaking her head against Sam's apology. "He knew what the job was, just like any one of us. You boys are the only ones here who didn't choose this life."

"How long have you been sittin' on all this, boy?" Bobby gravels from across the table, letting his empty clink into the trashcan and snagging a bottle of Johnnie Walker from the cabinet before pouring himself a couple fingers.

"Too long," Dean grumbles.

"Dean and I have gotten most of it over the past few days. But Dad?" Sam huffs out a breath, gives a weary shrug that does nothing to dislodge Dean's grip on his shoulder, a steady anchor through the storm. "Who even knows?

"Well, ain't ya'll just a bunch of ducks on a goddamn pond?" Bobby grouses as he knocks back the whisky. "What's our next step, then?"

"What?" Sam gapes, mouth dropping open just a little as it takes his brain a second to catch up.

"Well, you're still huntin' this thing, aren't ya?" the older hunter demands, slapping his glass on the scarred kitchen table. "Or it's huntin' you. Either way, there's gotta be a next step here, so let's fuckin' take it."

"Bobby-" Dean starts, but Sam is faster.

"Bobby, you can't," he protests, the words getting caught up, tripping over one another as they fight to come out, to list the reasons that getting mixed up in all of this, in them, is the worst of all bad ideas. "We don't know what I am, what I could do, what the demons could do to get to me! You could be a target now! Your place could end up like Pastor Jim's or Lawrence—"

"And it still wouldn't be the scariest shit list my name's been on top of." Bobby snaps, eyes sharp and jaw set. "Shut your trap and stop talkin' crazy, boy. You need backup on this, and you got it, like it or not."

"Ellen?" Dean asks, face carefully blank from his position standing sentinel at Sam's shoulder. "You got no ties here. You want to take Jo, cut your losses-"

"No ties?" Ellen interrupts sharply. "You bet your goddamn ass I got ties, son, and I'll thank you to remember that the next time you and your hard-headed brother decide to try and go somethin' like this alone without so much as givin' me a call!"

"Ellen, the Roadhouse-" Sam tries, but she is having none of that, stomps right over him with salt in her voice and steel in her spine.

"Is just another goddamn tie I'm gonna be thinkin' of when I send myself some black-eyed sons of bitches back to hell," Ellen grinds out. "That hole in the wall might have been a rat trap with a busted A/C and bad wiring, but it was _ours._ We built that place from the ground up, and Ash- well—"

She breaks off, swallows hard, and Sam can't help but remember a grubby Polaroid taped to the stained, moldering wall of the old RV. A picture of Ellen trying not to smile at the person behind the camera, the Roadhouse standing straight and proud behind her, paint not even dry on the promise of a fresh start.

One that's nothing but cinder and smoke now.

"They don't get to take like that," Ellen finishes after a long, difficult moment. "Not from me and mine."

And Sam gets that, he does, maybe more than anyone here, but this is so much more than anything they've ever faced before. So much more than what they know, what they're prepared for.

"Ellen, I could hurt you," he breaks in, his voice wavering at even the thought of turning on this woman and the small, soot-stained family she's managed to gather around her. "I could hurt Jo."

She meets his gaze, takes in where he's hunched at the kitchen table, elbows planted, head down, scarred wood and Dean's hand on his shoulder doing more to hold him up than any bone he's got, and Sam sees the salt and iron crack for a moment, the heart beneath the hardened peek out for just a moment.

"No, you couldn't." She shakes her head, eyes soft and voice gentle. "Not the boy sittin' in front of me."

"Jo-" Dean rumbles, but the younger hunter doesn't let his brother finish the question, instead meets Sam's gaze head-on, eyes sharp and arms crossed.

"You still the guy I talked with in that RV?" she challenges, chin tipping up just a little. "Still in this to get back at them for your mom?"

Sam nods, swallows hard with a sad, bitter laugh as Dean goes eerie quiet and stiff as a plank behind him, his hand on Sam's shoulder falling away, here and gone in an instant at the mention of their mother, of the deal that they haven't spoken a word of since that last fight.

Since before the fire.

"What?" Bobby demands, head jerking up from whisky number two.

But the words stick in Sam's throat again. His gaze flicks to Dean, standing tall and tight, jaw set and eyes squeezed shut, and Sam doesn't even know if he's hearing this, as deep as his brother's gone inside himself, as deep as he needs to go to even be in the room with someone talking about their mom like this.

"They needed permission," Sam whispers, eyes never leaving Dean, and it's less like he's telling them and more like he's praying, out loud and for his brother's sake, that no matter how many fingers point this way, no matter what the evidence says, that it's not true.

For Dean's sake and no one else's, Sam hopes they're wrong on this one. Hopes they're just barking up the wrong goddamn tree, even as the evidence tallies in his head, the lore and the history and the odds and the probability, Occam's Goddamn Razor screaming and slicing into him, cutting through flesh and carving into bone, adding up and spelling out, shouting too loud for Sam to ignore that it _has_ to be true, it _has to be_.

"To do what they did to me, to all of us," Sam continues dully, knowing that everyone needs to know this and trying, _trying_ to keep his face blank, his voice neutral and hating,_ hating_ that no matter how careful he is, no matter how dispassionate he sounds, every single word to Dean is just a twist of the goddamn knife. "They needed permission."

"From who?" Bobby gravels.

"Who else, Bobby?" Ellen cuts in, her voice near to breaking as she takes the Johnnie Walker from him, and tosses back a slug hard and fast.

"The mothers," Sam rasps, the words like broken glass in his throat, because for all that his brother's right there, right behind him, he can't feel him, not at all. Dean, _his Dean_, might as well be a stranger, might as well be made of stone, cold and distant and every bit as impenetrable as granite. "The family back in Blue Earth, the mom, Sarah, she- she made a deal. It looks like all of them might have- even our- she—"

"She _sold_ Sam?" Jo blurts out.

And that's it for Dean.

One heartbeat he's standing at Sam's shoulder, the next he's a blur, whirling and spiking his bottle against the peeling, stained wallpaper of Bobby's kitchen like a shot and slamming through the backdoor, screen swinging in his wake and Sam at his heels.


	64. Chapter 64

Maybe Sam should have taken his brother more seriously when he was on him about breathing exercises and rescue inhalers, because they're into the forest of parts and junkers on the back lot before Sam can catch up to Dean. He reaches out, panting and wheezing to his brother, only for him to whirl, wild-eyed and fraying, before Sam can even get a hand on him.

"She didn't fucking sell you!" Dean denies, shaking his head furiously, and maybe it's for Sam and maybe it's for himself and maybe neither of them knows which, but that's not what matters here. That's not what's important.

"Dean," Sam breathes.

He tries to reach out again, for stability, comfort, something, _anything_ he can offer, but Dean's having none of it. He slaps Sam's hand aside as he tries to clamp down on the rage ripping and roaring inside him and fails _spectacularly_, whirling on Sam and fisting both hands in his shirtfront, slamming him against a stack of junked cars and pinning him there fast, chest pressure-tight, breaths panic-fast.

"SHE DIDN'T FUCKIN' SELL YOU!" he shouts at the top of his lungs, arms tight, fists clenched in Sam's shirt like he's just _aching_ to let go and start punching, to just let loose and beat away the pain of losing their Mom, of getting robbed, bit by bit, of the woman he's always remembered, who he's always held close, special, _sacred_, falling back to the familiar crunch of fist against flesh, the simple math of muscle and bone drawing sweat and blood, cutting away the past and the doubt and the pain the only way their Dad taught them how.

"Dean, I know." Sam nods, eyes falling shut.

He's waiting, _bracing_ as his brother vibrates against him, one long, hot tight line of rage. God, if making this go away was as simple letting Dean land one on him, Sam'd take a hundred hits, a thousand, just to never have to feel the ragged, rabid anger in his brother's fists, his shivering, shaking, unhinged pants against Sam's collarbone every bit as raw and uneven as the pounding of his chest against Sam's.

"She didn't sell you," Dean repeats, low and ragged against him in the rust and dust of the junkyard, not looking up, not raising his eyes to Sam, just breathing. Harsh, tight ins and outs that Sam can feel in his gut, against his cheeks.

Dean's hands fist in Sam's collar. He watches his brother try and fail to keep himself together, to keep the weight of the world on his shoulders and their mother's memory on its pillar and never let either topple, never let on that the strain, the weight, the _struggle_ of it all is killing him.

"Dean," Sam breathes again, quiet and sympathetic.

He doesn't even know where he's going with this, doesn't even know what he's going to say, what he's got to offer, a plea, an apology, an explanation or excuse for what the evidence they've got says must have happened. He doesn't know, he _doesn't_, but that doesn't matter, because Dean's talking again, the words coming fast, insistent, spilling like rain against his skin.

"She loved you, Sam," Dean presses, meeting Sam's eye as his hands unclench, release his collar to trace numbly over the fabric of Sam's shirt as they fall, dangle uselessly at his side. "She did. I saw her."

"I know she did, Dean." He nods, relieved and disappointed at the same time at the loss of Dean's grip. He's thankful, in a way that's probably as twisted as anything about Sam ever is, that his brother's still right there, shaken and shuddering and barely inches away, because that means he can reach out, get a grip on the worn, washed-smooth plaid of Dean's sleeve, feel him, wound tight and close to breaking but _here_. "I know."

And he does, now that the hot, heady rush of hurt, of _hate_, from Meg's (_Salome's_, he corrects. Salome. She was never Meg. Not really.) revelation has died down. Now that it's simmered and sizzled into a steady, sturdy determination to find out, to _know_ exactly how they all ended up here. He need to know how all of this - blood and betrayal and boy kings - could come from the sweet smile and soft blonde curls that live on in the battered, beaten 4x5's in the back of their Dad's journal, in the sharp, steady green of Dean's eyes and the solid, somber storm of grief that's weighted their Dad's shoulders, shadowed his eyes and shuttered his smile and colored his every move since before Sam can remember.

Sam needs to understand how all of this could have come from a woman who was good. Who loved them, loved _him_, so much that the wound of her passing is still open, still jagged, and raw and weeping to this day.

She was good. She did love them.

He believes that much. Trusts his brother's memories of life before the fire the same way he trusts what they've learned so far. Fully believes that his mother cared for the baby he was the exact same way he trusts the data that sets the pattern, because Sam's seen the way Dean holds her close, the way his brother jealously guards the Sacred Time Before. Their mom's memory is the blood, bone, and body of the sanctum sanctorum of Life Before the Fire, the heart of the flames of their Dad's vendetta and their family's war. It's been years, _decades_, long enough for Sam's cynicism to shout just as loud as the voice in his head screaming that she had to have been a good person, had to deserve that kind of love, the kind of devotion Dean and Dad lay at her feet daily, hourly, minutely, even after all this time, because Sam knows Dad. Knows Dean even better.

He knows that even if their Mom wasn't every bit the paragon Dad and Dean paint her as, they would still remember her that way. They'd still swear up, down, and sideways that she hung the moon and picked out the stars just for them, just because she was that good.

If this was any other case, if they were any other family, Sam would be laying on the sympathy right now; assurances that _of course_ your beloved wife/sister/daughter/mother was every bit as good as you remember her, of course she would never murder/summon/consort with or be anything black/naughty and/or evil, _of course_, while making notes under the table to check into the target for all she's worth.

But this isn't any other case.

This isn't any other case and they're not any other family and for all that she died the night he turned six months old, Sam _has_ met their mother.

He saw her, still burning, in the resurrected nursery of their old house. He watched her try, again and again, to protect those kids from the awful, invisible evil drawn to the scars of what happened there all those years ago. She'd reached out over and again towards them, towards _him_, pushing so hard against whatever separates where they are from where she was that eventually the cinders, the smoke, the fire, it all fell away. Fell and faded and flickered down and he _knew_ her. Knew her like he never though he would. And she...

She knew him.

Sam had never, in his whole life, believed that if a miracle were to happen, if he were to somehow meet their mom in this life or the next, she'd ever actually recognize him.

But she had. And her eyes, (_Dean's eyes_, Sam had realized weeks after, in the cold, grey hours before dawn on the scratchy sheets of some anonymous motel room) her eyes had been sad. Sad and soft and spilling over with the weight of what she'd seen. With what she'd done…

She'd apologized for it.

Her last words, the last words she'd had for any one person in this existence, had been for him.

And they'd been an apology.

So yes, Sam can believe Mary loved him. Can believe that no matter what Dean and Dad have built her into over the years at her core, at the beginning, first and last and always, even after red flames and Yellow Eyes snatched her away from them, their mom was good.

Sam knows that. Knows that like he knows that he saw her there in the flames, knows that there was love in her eyes, her touch, her voice. And because he knows that, because he knows that and trusts it and cares for Dean so much that it physically _hurts_, that seeing him going through this is like being back in that goddamn panic room, Sam is going to figure it all out. He's going to figure out how this happened and why and what he can do to fix it, because his mother loved him. She loved him and she loved Dean, and that kind of love doesn't appear overnight. It doesn't start ten years before, and it doesn't die ten years after. There has to be a reason she would do something like this.

"You can't think—" Dean shakes his head, denies hard, and Sam's with him on this, he is. "They can't think—"

"I don't, Dean. They don't," Sam assures, running his hands down Dean's arms, over the smooth, familiar plaid of his brother's shirt.

Dean recovers enough for a short, sarcastic snort, so close Sam can feel the huff of breath hit his shoulder.

"Listen, we got Bobby's library," Sam offers as he feels some of the tension bleed out of his brother beneath his hands. "We got him and Ellen on it. Jo, too. We'll figure it out. We'll get to the bottom of this, Dean. Promise."

"Yeah." He nods, and Sam can practically feel Dean pulling himself together, locking it all back in as he straightens up, steps back.

He shoves his hands through the bristled disarray of his hair and then suddenly drops them, shooting a sharp look Sam's way.

"What?" Sam blinks, confused.

"What the hell was that back there?" Dean demands, furious again.

"What?" Sam asks, spiraling from 'confused' to 'totally fucking lost' in a heartbeat.

"We said 'full disclosure' Sam, not share every fucking psychic friends moment you've had since fucking _birth__!"_Dean snaps, and this? _Really?! _

"They needed to know, Dean!" Sam bursts out, arms spreading wide as he rounds on his brother.

"Yeah, they needed to know!" Dean tosses back, getting in Sam's face. "They don't need your kicked puppy ass marchin' in there, practically shouting 'I'm a friggen demon! Kill me!'"

"That's not—"

"Oh, what the fuck ever!" Dean scoffs. "You did everything but load the gun, Sam, and you're goddamn lucky it was Bobby and Ellen in there, 'cause any other hunter? Speech like that? They'da ended you."

"And maybe they'd be right, Dean!" Sam explodes without thinking, surging forward so that now Dean's the one backed against the wall of wasted junkers. Now Dean's the one with no way out, nowhere to go, no choice but to face what Sam _is_, what he might _become_.

"What?" his brother demands, voice flat as his gaze snaps up to Sam in sudden, sharp challenge.

Sam looks away, eyes down on the dusty, scrubby ground of the junkyard as the silence stretches, grows as what he said echoes, fills the heartbeat between them, hard and heavy.

"No, I'm sorry, WHAT?!" Dean demands again, louder.

"We still don't know—" Sam starts quietly, only for Dean to cut him off again.

"Bull_shit__,_ we don't." His brother snorts, but Dean's had his turn to talk and he _needs_ to hear this, whether he wants to or not.

"We _don't_, Dean!" Sam shouts, driving a fist into the rusted-out fender over his brother's ear, frustrated beyond reason that Dean just _refuses_ to admit this. "No one does! Not even the goddamn demons know what I am! What I'm going to _become_."

"And what's that supposed to mean, huh?" Dean barks, sharp and unforgiving as the wasted metal he's backed against.

"It means we have no idea," Sam grinds out, knuckles grating against flaking paint and ruined iron, "and we can't afford to take chances."

"Chances, huh?" Dean challenges, fierce and furious and he's _like_ this. He's _always_ like this, wouldn't be Dean if he wasn't, but Sam wishes, just _wishes_— "You're sayin' I should go full Dad on this one? Start firing rounds at my goddamn shadow? Leave you in fucking burning buildings or some shit?"

"Maybe you should, Dean!" Sam fires back, because Dean can't really not get this. He _can't_.

His brother's smart, knows this job, this _hunt_ like the back of his hand. If _demons_ think Sam is something to be afraid of, then Dean needs to be worried, _terrified_ of what Sam could become one day. Of what's coming for him and the kids like him.

Dean should get this. He _should__,_and he _doesn't__,_and that is _terrifying_.

"What?" Dean blinks, completely gobsmacked when he has _no_ right to be. "Sam, have you lost your damn mind? What the hell are you sayin', man?"

"I'm saying you came back and found that church on fire, that family dead, Dad and Jim in the parking lot _telling_ you I did it, and your first impulse was to kick down the door? Charge in after me?" Sam demand.

He's grounded by the harsh grate of ruined steel and rusted paint grinding into his fist, the pounding, fervent heat of his brother under him around him, here but not here, aware but oblivious, and Dean doesn't know, _can't_ know, should never, _ever_ know, but that isn't- that doesn't mean—

And Sam's breathing hitches, stops completely, and it's not because of smoke or fire or anything other than a wave of fear hitting him anew at how _stupid_, how _reckless_ his goddamn brother is and how- how if Sam had gone Dark Side in there, Dean would have- could have—

"Hell yeah, I did," Dean snaps back, defiant and unapologetic and so stubborn Sam could _scream_. "Saved your ass. What's the big deal?"

"Dean, the big deal is what if it _was_ me?!" Sam demands, beyond shocked at how completely Dean just_does not get it. _"You had no way of knowing! I coulda been in that cell going full blown Vader—"

"And I wouldn't have cared!" Dean shouts over Sam, cutting him off.

"What?" Sam blinks at his brother, stunned.

"You heard me," Dean gravels, not meeting his eye.

"Dean, what do you…" Sam starts, trails off, because he can't possibly mean—

"You don't- You're not—"

Dean sighs. He scrubs his hand through the bristle of his hair, let's his eyes close and head tip back against the cars he's leaning against, still not looking up at Sam as he tries and fails to make sense out of his outburst. His eyes crease against the glare beginning to burn through the lingering clouds.

"You're not alone in this, Sammy," his brother gusts out after a long moment, finally meeting Sam's gaze. "I'm not Dad. I'm not- I'm not leaving you alone in this. Not now, not ever."

"So if you'd have known…" Sam stares, tries to process, to work through what Dean is telling him here.

"I'dve still done what I did," Dean finishes for him on a long heavy breath, looking up as his fingers snag Sam's where they're planted against the cars, tangle together to fall away from the junkers and rest against his side. "Told you once, Sammy. You and me? Way things are..."

He sighs, thumb tracing up the raised, silvery-pink line of Sam's transfusion scar, his souvenir from Covington, his badge to the world declaring exactly how far he's willing to go when his brother's life is on the line. Sam can feel the roughness of his brother's gun hand, warm, rough ridges highlighting over and again what they are, what they've been through together.

"There should be a line," Dean continues, echoing his words from the day before. "Don't mean there is."

He drops Sam's wrist. The drag of work-worn callous and smooth, suntanned skin sends shivers across Sam's skin. His brother's fingers catch on Sam's belt loop for less than a heartbeat, a hot, heady half-second that scorches Sam, pulls at his waist, his hips, _lower_, before Dean elbows up, ducks past him and makes for the house with his hands shoved in his pockets, his head ducked against the weak glare of the midday sun, and he couldn't- he didn't mean— He _didn't_, but then…

...What the _fuck_ was that?


	65. Chapter 65

Dean trudges back through the jungle of mangled cars and scrap metal like a man on his way to the gallows. He shoves Sam and his stupid, suicidal martyr complex to the back of his goddamn brain, stuffs it tight in the box labeled "Shit We'll Deal With To-Goddamn-Morrow" and swaps it out for demon deals and devil's bargains and Sammy and Mom at the center of it all, right where he will never, _ever_ be okay with them being, and with jack-shit he can do about it.

He agreed to do this the night before shit at Jim's went all to hell. He knows that. He'd steeled himself for looking into Mom, told himself he could do it, _had_to do it, but goddammit, he couldn't just sit there and listen to them _talk_ about her like that. Like they believed, even for a second, that she could really do it. That they thought she could trade her own son to a demon, _The_ Demon. That she could sell Sam out and still tuck him in every night, sing him lullabies, leave kisses on his forehead and his nose and chubby cheeks when she knew that there was something evil coming for him. That the woman who burned herself up to save Sam back in Lawrence could ever, for _any reason_give a demon permission to do this to her family, to her _son_.

_"Good people do bad things for reasons,"_Sam had said back in Blue Earth, but there's no reason that could justify something like this. There's nothing so important that a good person, someone as kind and gentle and loving as Dean's mom, would _ever_ agree to let that yellow-eyed son of a bitch touch Sammy. There's nothing worth so much that a good person would let a demon pour its blood down her son's throat, blood that would change him from the inside out, leave him hurt and raw and _scared_, so scared of himself that he thinks he'd be better off _dead_—

Dean's hands clench into fists at his sides. He glances back at Sam, a silent shadow following close at Dean's heels, his eyes squinting against the sunlight glaring off of damp metal and a little line between his eyebrows, a crinkle to his nose that means he's thinking hard, his big ol' Stanford brain whirling away, analyzing, reaching conclusions that Dean can't predict and just as likely doesn't want to know.

Because God, each glimpse he's gotten into Sam's headspace lately has been worse than the last. Every goddamn time he's turned up something more horrible, more terrifying.

Their last conversation sits like a sick, heavy weight in Dean's gut. Just the thought of leaving Sam behind in that church makes sour, stinging bile rise in his throat, and the fact that Sam thinks he should have? That he ever _could_, no matter what happens, no matter what Sam does, no matter what he is, no matter what he _becomes_? Well, Dean just hopes against hope that this time Sam will _believe_ him, because goddammit, _he means it_.

It doesn't matter what happens down the line; nothing will change how Dean feels. He's said it a million times, and he's just gonna keep saying it until Sam gets it through his thick goddamn skull that it doesn't matter, not any of it.

This thing they have between them – _whatever_ the hell it is – is stronger than that. Worth more than all of this.

Sam can argue all he wants, can float every nightmarish possibility his dumb genius brain can cook up, but Dean's not changing his mind. He's not going anywhere, not ever. 'Wither thou goest' and all that crap. And Sam can fucking entreatest him until he's blue in the face – which shouldn't take too long since the stubborn dork hasn't been doing his goddamn breathing exercises – but Dean's not going anywhere.

He's with Sam until the very end on this one. No matter what.

That still doesn't make it any easier to take this thing with Mom. In some ways, it makes it _harder_. This is the last place Dean wants to follow Sam, a path he can't help but hate being dragged along, no matter what the reason. And maybe it's not really Sam's fault or Bobby's or Ellen's, because yeah, sure, this all started with Motormouth Meg and motherfucking Yellow Eyes and then with that son of a bitch crossroads demon Sam just _had_ to call up, but that doesn't mean everyone has to jump to _believe_the black-eyed bastards. It doesn't make it alright for them to not even _question_, to be so fucking ready to believe demons over Dean, over _Mom_. No matter what Sam says, Dean can't— God, he can't wrap his head around it. He doesn't even want to try.

And, he thinks as he yanks open the screen door, he _really_ doesn't wanna have to face Bobby and the Harvelles again right now.

But there's no one left at the kitchen table. The dirty dishes are all piled in the sink, and the only person left in the room is Jo, sweeping up Dean's shattered beer bottle with a sour expression. She glances up when they open the creaky screen door and narrows her eyes at Dean.

"No more Roadhouse," she grumbles, crouching down to pick up the dustpan, "but here I am, still cleaning up after moody drunks."

Dean feels shame pricking at his cheeks, ducks his head and rubs a palm against the back of his neck, only for Sam to clear his throat and nail Dean with a meaningful and not-at-all-subtle kick to the back of the leg.

"Let- let me get that," he starts, stumbling forward on the force of the kick (damn Sasquatch brother) and holding out a hand. "I didn't—"

Jo huffs and shrugs her bare shoulders before dumping contents of the dustpan into the trashcan with a tinkling chorus of glass.

"It's fine," she says grudgingly as she snags a dishtowel off the counter and runs it under the faucet, nodding toward Bobby's study. "They're already started in there."

Of course they are. They're hunters, and now that Sam's told them everything they needed to know (as well as some things they _really fucking didn't_), it only makes sense for them to start working the case. They don't want to waste time, don't need to question or debate digging up all the dirt they can on this, because to them, Mom is just a suspect. Just some dumb civilian who got mixed up with the shit that goes 'chomp' in the night. As far as they're concerned, she could be anyone.

But this isn't just anyone. This is Mary Winchester. This is Dean's _mom_, and he _knows_her, is the _only one here_ who knows her. He's the only one here who trusts her, the only one who believes in her. If this were just another suspect, if this were just any other case, that would make him blind, unreliable. But here? Now? It just makes him _right_.

And it means, more than anything, that he needs to be in that study working right alongside them. Somebody needs to be in there making sure they do right by her, that they do this job perfectly, follow every lead, answer every question, and prove once and for all to Sam – to _all_ of them – that Mary Winchester was good, was _innocent_, that she was _exactly_ who Dean's been saying she was all along.

When they come in through the door, Bobby's on the phone, scribbling notes onto a yellow legal pad. He gestures for them to keep it down, like Sam and Dean didn't learn to play the goddamn Quiet Game while he's pulling his FBI shtick when they were in single digits.

Dean just huffs, drags Sam over to claim seats on the battered couch a few feet away from where Ellen is manning a beaten and increasingly irritated-sounding fax machine. Jo follows them in from the kitchen a few moments later, perching lightly on the arm of the couch next to Sam. Yeah, now Dean's kinda gettin' what she meant about the kid's table. He's been sitting on his ass watching Bobby and Ellen do the heavy lifting for all of ten seconds, and he's already starting to feel itchy. Hard to imagine a couple of years of this crap without so much as a salt-n-burn to bump you off the pine.

"Right," Bobby nods into the receiver, digging out another fistful of copy paper for Ellen to shove into the fax machine as he scrabbles to take notes with his other hand, "and birth records, too, if you got 'em. Yeah, hard copies of everything."

The fax machine is sputtering away now, starting to spit out document after document into Ellen's waiting hands. She shuffles them efficiently into little stacks, filing chaos beside disorder and depositing them one after another onto Bobby's desk, spreading every fact about Mom's life and death out on the battered oak like a cadaver waiting to be dissected, backlogs and ballpoints lined up like scalpels to take her apart, scrape her to the bone and dig out her every action, pick apart her every motive in the hopes of maybe, hopefully finding something that proves what Dean knows, absolutely, to be true: they're wrong about this.

They _have_ to be wrong about this.

His restless energy reaching a boiling point, Dean stands, strides forward and reaches around Ellen to snatch the next document out of the machine, flipping it around to scan the page. His blood freezes in his veins as soon as he registers the stamp across the top that reads _"November 2, 1983"_ and, under that, printed in emotionless, bold type: _"Kansas State Department of Health and Environment - Certificate of Death."_

Dean swallows the lump in his throat and shoves the paper into Ellen's hands wordlessly. She glances over it quickly, moves to set it on Bobby's desk, then pauses, frowning, her eyes narrowing.

"All right," Bobby grumbles, hanging up the phone. "Well, that's a start."

"You called the Probate's office?" Sam confirms, the couch creaking in protest as he leans forward.

"That's right," Bobby nods. "Pretty soon, we'll have just about everything Douglas County's got on Mary Winchester."

"Mary _Campbell_Winchester," Ellen amends in an incredulous voice, still staring at the death certificate in her hands. "She was a Campbell, before John."

Dean frowns, glancing from her to Bobby, but the older hunter looks just as confused as he feels.

"Yeah," Bobby confirms, flipping through his notepad and shuffling a couple of the copies on his desk. "Born December 5th, 1954, daughter of Samuel Campbell and Deanna—"

"_MacKenzie_," Ellen cuts him off, eyes still trained on the paper in her hands.

She looks up, giving Bobby a long, significant look.

"Deanna MacKenzie Campbell," she finishes slowly, heavily. Like Dean's world's just gotten a hell of a lot darker and only she knows why.

"You mean..." Bobby starts, scanning the papers splayed out in front of him, his eyebrows shooting up to hide behind his cap's tattered brim. He sits back heavily in his chair and lets out a whistle, copies falling to the battered desk with a stunned rustle. "Christ. _That_ changes things now, don't it?"

"You're tellin' me," Ellen says wryly, slapping the death certificate down onto Bobby's desk, right at the top of the goddamn heap.

"Somethin' you wanna share with the class, Ellen?" Dean snaps, glancing between them. "What does that mean? _What_changes things?"

He looks over at Sam, but his brother is no help, his face firmly fixed in that sucking-on-a-lemon grimace he gets when somebody in the room knows more than he does. Over his shoulder, Jo pulls a face that says clear as day:_"You see what I've been dealing with?"_

Ellen turns to give him a measuring look, like she's tryin' to figure out exactly how much shit Dean can take, just how fast he can shovel down dark and awful and still keep going, but Dean didn't grow up on lace and doilies, was never cushioned by plush carpets and needlework pillows and cutesy, cloying traces of roses on the walls.

He didn't have fishing trips or photos of him with Sammy on the first day of school or an Ellen Harvelle standing over his shoulder as John carted them back and forth across the country, fighting the good fight the only way they knew how. He didn't have someone to shield him from the tough stuff life lobbed at him, the punches to the gut, the hits below the belt. He's never had that, and he's never needed it. Has never known how to need it.

So whatever she knows, whatever horrible secret Ellen thinks she's fucking lit on just by looking at a few names on a goddamn death certificate, Dean can take it.

Doesn't know any other way than to just _take it._

"Not that I see you as much of the type," Ellen starts, keeping a level eye on Dean, like he's a bomb about to go off any minute, "but let's just say, honey, if you were of a mind? You could start callin me 'Aunt Ellen' right about now."

Dean stares, his head starting to spin as that rolls, settles, sinks in slow and strange and reluctant.

"_What?!_" he, Sam, and Jo all manage to at once, with varying levels of confusion, disbelief, and right-out hostility in their voices.

"Now Ellen, I forget," Bobby says, rocking forward in his chair and pouring himself another couple fingers of whisky. "You weren't a Campbell before Bill, were ya?"

"I was a MacKenzie, thank you very much." Ellen grumbles, taking the bottle and capping it savagely. "My family tree _forks_."

God, if Dean and Sam are half this infuriating when they talk over people's heads, Dean's surprised nobody's taken a shot at them yet.

"Sorry to interrupt, but either of you two wanna tell me what the _hell_ you're talking about?" Dean snaps, vaulting to his feet.

Sam rises on his heels and get a hand on his shoulder, but hell if he's got time for that. Whatever the hell it is that Bobby and Ellen aren't saying about them and their goddamn Mom, they better say pretty goddamn quick because he is beginning to lose whatever thready, tenuous grip on 'calm' and 'rational' he walked in here with.

"Hunter families," Ellen says succinctly, passing the copies of their mom's birth and death certificates over to him as she digs in the pocket of her jeans. "Your mama was a hunter."

"_What?_" Sam gapes, at the same time Dean manages to growl, "Come again?"

They've gotten off track somewhere, gotten things mixed up, and Ellen's confused or joking or- or just- just fucking _wrong_, because Mom— Mom wasn't a _hunter_. Mom didn't know about monsters or demons or things that go bump in the goddamn night. Mom was just- just _Mom_. Regular, normal, apple pie and PB n' J's Mom. She didn't- She wasn't- She just- _wasn't_. This is _crazy_. _Beyond_ crazy.

There's no way, just no goddamn way, because she was _theirs_, theirs from before all this. There's just _no way_ she was mixed up in it, wouldn't have let Dad or Dean or _someone_ in on her being- her—

No. No. This is just- not even—

"That's not possible," Dean grits out, grip tightening on the copies in his hands. This doesn't make a lick of goddamn sense, and someone'd better start explaining themselves, better _fix_this real fast before Dean finds something else to fucking break, something a hell of a lot bigger and a hell of a lot sharper than a goddamn beer bottle.

"It sure as hell is," Ellen tosses right back. She digs a battered, yellowing Nebraska driver's license from her wallet and tosses it on the birth certificate half-crumpled in Dean's hand. The once-glossy card skids and slides to rest right over the space for the deceased's mother's name. The sterile, institutional square is filled with speckled, uneven type spelling out "Deanna Jean MacKenzie" a dead match for the dull, state-issued plastic identifying Ellen MacKenzie Harvelle.

"Campbell? MacKenzie?" Ellen continues, reclaiming her ID and slipping it back into her wallet. "Those are huntin' families. They don't _raise_non-hunters."

"Hunter _families_," Dean repeats in the same exact tone he'd used for 'hunter's bar' back in Illinois.

"You're really gonna stand there being raised how your daddy raised you, smack dab between me and my Jo, and tell me families of hunters are out of the damn question?" Ellen snorts. "You might've had a long couple of days, Dean Winchester, but you ain't stupid. Somewhere in that too-pretty head of yours, you know just as well as I do: You got families who are sailors, you got families who are soldiers, and you got families who are hunters."

/tag/

"We're talkin' 'bout the same grudges against what's out there," she continues. "The same fathers raisin' the same sons to fight the same family fight, just on a bigger scale. And the Campbells are about as big a scale as scale gets. MacKenzies come close, though, and I oughta know, 'cause until about twenty-five years ago, I was one of them."

There's a long moment of silence, and then Jo laughs incredulously.

"Of course you were," she spits out, throwing up her hands with a grin belied by the set of her jaw and twinkle of rage in her eyes. "But you never told me because, what? All those years at the bar? On the job? Hunting just never came up?"

Ellen cranks an eyebrow, as clear as sign as Dean's ever seen that this is not the time or place she wants to have this conversation with her daughter, but Jo just keeps going.

"No, no, I know!" Jo laughs sharply, an edge of sour, savage hysteria creeping into her voice. "It's because we never talked about what it was like to be raised into this! To want to do what your family did! What your father did! I mean, it's not like _you_ were raised in the life or anything! Not like _you've_ lost people to this who you want to fight back for! Jesus Christ, it's not even like you know what _normal_ is, like you know what wanting—"

"I wanted you to have a choice!" Ellen cuts her off, eyes hard and mouth tight. "To have a chance at a life outside of fightin' and bleedin' and dyin' for a whole hell of a lot of nothing outside of an empty bed and iron rounds! I wanted you to know what havin' a family was like, Johanna! To have a bedroom instead of barracks and school instead of a shootin' range and a shred of knowin' what life was like outside of livin' and dyin' for the goddamn cause!"

"You wanted me to have a choice so you chose for me?!" Jo fires back. "That's bullshit! _Total bullshit!_ You _knew!_ You knew what it was like, and you knew what I was going through, and you didn't say _anything!_ Just did everything you could to keep me cuffed to your goddamn _bar_ and your goddamn _choice_ and—"

"And if you hated it so much you should be a hell of a lot happier now, shouldn't you?!" Ellen demands. "No bar, no home, no life to speak of outside of huntin' and hatin' and hurtin' them until they put you in the ground. Stuff of dreams, ain't it, Josie?!"

"It would be, but I'm still stuck here with _you!"_ Jo screams, fists balled at her sides, tight and furious.

"Well, stop the presses!" Ellen tosses out, sharp, sarcastic scorn slicing her features. "Josie's unhappy! Mean Ole Mama's on her case so hard she's gotta stop the goddamn hunt to take her to task for it! Can't go worryin' about someone else when the Princess is unhappy, now can we?"

"They—!" Jo starts, firing a quick, angry finger at Sam and Dean, backed awkwardly against the couch and away from the line of fire.

"They'd be lucky to have half the 'problems' you have, sweetheart," Ellen cuts her off, complete with sarcastic finger quotations. "And you'd do good to remember that!"

"What? They'd be _lucky_ to have their Mom deciding their every goddamn move every second of every day?" Jo sneers. "Grateful to have a bitter, controlling—"

"_Family_," Ellen snaps, eyes sharp and voice tripwire-tight. "I gave you a goddamn _family."_

"'Family' doesn't grab your ass and screw you out of tips," Jo fires back with a cruel, bitter curl to her lip. "You want family? _Ash_ was family."

"This again." Ellen rolls her eyes, but Jo doesn't let her get far.

"Yeah, _this again_!"

"You are not goin' after God-knows-how-many demons alone, Johanna Beth, and that is final!" Ellen shakes her head, stubborn and steely as a cast-iron mule. "Not while you're under my roof!"

"We don't have a roof!" Jo breaks in, boiling over with anger and frustration, and no wonder Sammy feels for the kid, because this part? God, this part is too, too familiar. "This isn't our roof! It's not ours; it's not yours; it's _his_, just like this decision is _mine_. I'm going—"

"Then goddamn go!" Ellen shouts, snatching the keys out of her pocket and flinging them at Jo's feet with a sharp, sour 'clank' on the stained hardwood. "Goddamn _go_ already, you wanna be gone so bad!"

"I will!" Jo snaps, snatching up the keys lightning-fast and backing for the door.

"Fine." Ellen nods stubbornly, mouth in a tight, pinched line.

"Fine!" Jo tosses back, whirling on her heel to wrench the door open, nearly kicking through the screen to tear across the porch and down the front steps with a few sharp, staccato thumps of boot on sagging, splintering wood. Ellen follows hot on her heels.

A few heartbeats later, there's a heavy, uneven thunk of something against the front porch. Rumsfield's whine of protest reaching the living room as Dean leans past Sam, peeks out the front window to see Jo standing in the bed of Ellen's truck, energetically hurling boxes and duffles to crash in chaotic splendor on Bobby's lawn as she and Ellen scream at one another.

"Should we…" Dean starts, looking between Sam at his shoulder and the knock-down drag-out family feud unfolding on the lawn.

Bobby snorts into his whiskey.

"Yeah, you got any limbs you're not so fond of," the older hunter mutters, mopping up booze and shuffling through copies on his desk as he makes a good show of ignoring the escalating shouts from outside.

As one particularly strident "Controlling bitch!" makes its way from the front yard to the house, Dean can't help but think Bobby might be onto somethin' there.

"So…" Sam starts, looking around the suddenly too-quiet study as they all try to ignore the increasingly personal insults filtering in from the yard. "Our Mom. Hunter."

Right._That. _

Like today hasn't been awful and weird enough_._

"Got any more of that booze, Bobby?" Dean mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face as he sinks into the couch. "'Cause I'm gonna need about _all of it_ before I get to a level where that sounds anything but eight kinds of crazy."

And impossible. And _wrong_.

"Better get started, then," Bobby suggests, tossing Dean his flask. Sam tries for the intercept, but fumbles it like the overgrown girl he secretly is, leaving Dean with sweet, alcoholic victory.

Normally, Dean'd expect a smart remark from his brother on this one, at the very least an afterschool special "Make Good Choices, Goddammit" glare before a "My Brother is a Self-Destructive Idiot"-filled "Deeeean," but instead of any of that, Sam just sinks into the couch next to him and shoves his hands through his hair, making a blind grab for the flask as soon as Dean finishes his first slug of Johnnie.

"What's with you?" he asks, weaving the container away from Sam's seeking hand with big-brotherly grace and artistry.

"Dean," Sam groans (There it is. Knew Sammy couldn't keep it in for long.), letting his head fall back on the couch, his stupid girl hair flopping every which way.

"Not with your meds." Dean shakes his head, pinning Sam with a glare. "Seriously. What gives?"

"I'm hellspawn, and my chest hurts," Sam whines, making another grab, only for Dean to weave away from him on the couch.

"You're not hellspawn," he tosses back automatically, still holding the flask out of Sam's reach. "Now why're you suddenly joining the Self-Medication Nation?"

Sam hesitates, glances at Bobby thumbing through copies on the desk before the other hunter looks up, shoots them a "God Save Me from Idjit Boys" glare, and shoves away from the desk.

"Guess I'll go see to Rumsfeld, then." He scowls, stomping into the kitchen and out the side door, muttering under his breath about knuckleheaded boys and hormonal women and how he should have just put up that fence like the county commissioner wanted.

"Come on." Dean can't help but chuckle, just a little, at Bobby's antics as he shoves up from the couch, sticks out a hand to help Sammy up. "Time for your noon meds anyway."

Sam makes a sour face but lets Dean drag him off the couch anyway. He doesn't actually say anything about Dean being an overprotective mother hen, but as they make their way up the stairs (Slowly. Seriously, has Sam even _tried_ the breathing exercises?) Dean can definitely make out his brother grumbling about 'useless meds' and 'stupid smoke inhalation' and psychic powers that are great for remodeling but shit at converting oxygen to carbon dioxide.

But as he's passing Sam the first in a litany of pills for the hickory-smoked and wheezing, Dean figures that asking his brother what's got him in a boozin' mood is right up there with asking him if he'd like to run a marathon anytime soon or maybe shave his head and join a doomsday cult.

There are stupid questions, and then there's askin' a Winchester what kind of day they're havin'.

Pretty late in the game to be hopin' they'll catch a break, though, so Dean just tucks Bobby's flask in his back pocket and drops next to Sammy on the bed, letting their shoulders bump together as he braces his elbows on his knees and sets in to wait.

It takes a couple of minutes, the cool, quiet hush of the big, airy bedroom chasing away the distractions. Ellen's stubbornness, Jo's resentment, Bobby's irritation, and a hundred thousand other things drop away into long, lazy summer shadows stretching in the afternoon sun and the soft, sleepy hum of the house's battered A/C, cranking to life and sending the faint, faded lace of the curtains on the windows fluttering and fading in the draft.

"She knew," Sam murmurs into the hush after a few long, silent moments. "If it's true."

At least that's how he's starting this, at least he's not buying into this whole weird, wild, "Mom Was Secretly in the Life" story without a few goddamn reservations.

"If it's true, then she knew what she was doing. She knew what it would mean for us. For me."

"Sam…"

Dean doesn't know what to do with that. He still isn't entirely on the "Mom was a Hunter" page, but Sam's already there, putting match to kindling and realizing that if Mom was a hunter, she would have known the Deal was…

Well, that it was a Deal. That ten years from whatever the hell happened on May 2, 1973, it would come due, and her life- all of their lives- would come crashing down.

"We still don't know—"

"She's related to _Ellen_, Dean," Sam cuts him off on a gusty sigh.

"Ellen_thinks_ she's related," Dean corrects. "We don't know if it's the same Campbells, if she's right or if this is all some big—"

"You can't keep making excuses like this, Dean!" Sam interrupts. "You can't keep thinking up reasons Mom can't possibly be anyone other than who we thought she was! Sooner or later, you're gonna have to face the fact that she might have been someone more than who we-"

He cuts himself off, shakes his head a little as his mouth tightens, his eyes squeeze shut.

"Who _you_ remember her being," he finishes.

"We?" Dean repeats.

"It's stupid," Sam mutters, glaring at Bobby's carpet as he looks away. "It was just once. Just for a minute."

"She saved you," Dean murmurs, giving Sam a long, hard look, because that— God, it really was the first, the _only_ time, Sammy'd really seen her, wasn't it?

"She did." Sam nods, meeting Dean's eye. "She saved me. Whatever happened to give Yellow Eyes the go-ahead, whatever she knew or didn't know was coming, she was in that nursery with me. She was there, and she tried to save me. She tried hard enough to keep her here and fighting and _her_ long enough to protect those kids back in Lawrence. She saved them from whatever was in our old house. She saved them and us, and she burnt herself up doing it. So is it really that hard to think with all that fighting, all that saving, she was in the life? That she was someone who saved people? A hunter?"

And that's… another way of thinking about it. Definitely a Sammy way of thinking about it, but still…

It's not hard. Not at all. Not when you come at it that way. Not when it's thinking of his Mom as more, rather than less.

It's not a solution, not by a long shot, and it's not taking Ellen Harvelle's word without more than a few goddamn grains of salt, not in this lifetime, not when it comes to this, but it's something. It's enough, for now.

"The family business, huh Sammy?" He shakes his head with a little laugh, trying and failing to get a handle on Mom the Hunter, but coming closer as Sam chuckles beside him.

"No kidding." Sam snorts, ducking his head to hid his grin. "We should probably head back down. Bobby drops a bomb about Dad dancing for the Russian Ballet, I'm gonna need as much time between now and dinner to deal with it as possible."

"Oh, not enough booze in the world, dude." Dean winces, shoving past Sam to the door, "Not cool! Not even cool!"

"You're imagining him in the tights, aren't you?" Sam teases, little-brother smirk on his face a mile wide as they start down the stairs.

"Yeah, I am _now_," Dean scoffs, ramming an elbow into Sam's solar plexus as they hit the landing. "Thanks for the nightmares, Sammy."


	66. Chapter 66

Their teasing dies down in a heartbeat when they come back into the study to see Ellen and Bobby at the mantle over shots. Bobby is silent and watchful, Ellen's mouth tight and drawn as she pounds back the whisky, leaving nothing in the air but awkward, strained silence as Jo's absence becomes increasingly hard to ignore.

"Deanna was a cousin," Ellen picks up abruptly as Sam and Dean shuffle back into the room, all awkward hands and studiously averted eyes.

She shelves the whisky, and Bobby settles back in at his desk, computer wheezing back into wakefulness in front of him.

"Couple times removed and nowhere near my age group, but I knew her enough to tell you that she sure as shit _was_ a goddamn hunter. And Samuel Campbell? He's _the_hunter. Or he was, until…" She breaks off, thinking, then continues with a nod. "Well, until a little over thirty years ago."

So, okay. Ellen knew their grandmother. Knew her, because she's related to her. Grew up with her.

Hunted with her.

Their grandmother was a hunter. And their grandfather.

Okay.

They were both hunters. And if they were hunters… Well you're either in or you're out, and if you're parents are in…

Dean can do this. He can totally do this.

Mom was a hunter and Ellen kinda, sorta, maybe is related to them and none of these facts are making Dean want to punch someone's face in _at all_.

He can totally fucking do this.

"Wait," Sam breaks in finally, voice holding the tiniest, faintest hint of hope. So small, so fragile that hearing it, seeing that glimpse of a part of Sam that's been smothered by all of this for so, so long, causes a deep, guilty clenching in Dean's gut. "Ellen, are you saying you-? Did you _know_ our mom?"

Ellen's shakes her head, eyes softening a bit.

"I'm sorry, honey, but the Campbells aren't exactly what you'd call 'sociable'," she says, then adds wryly. "Take it from someone who knows. You don't like the men, you never see the women, and you won't meet the kids 'less they're boys and make it to huntin' age, when they crop up battle-trained and hunt ready. It's like a damn cult."

God, Dean knew this was gonna suck. _Hard._

Because where the "Oh, And Your Mom Was A Hunter" bum-rush is a rough one, following it up with a "Hunting Cults Are a Thing and She Was in One" Chaser is just _brutal_.

Shit, first you give him Hunting Bars, then Hunting Moms and Hunting Families, and now Hunting Cults? Like, Waco-style, behind closed doors, "One of U,s" drinkin' the Kool-Aid, super-secret handshake weirdness? Seeing Mom salting the doors and windows behind their backs and red-inking weird deaths in the Lawrence Journal is one thing, but cults?_Really?_

Seriously, are Hunter Bowling Leagues next? Because at this point, Dean doesn't know _what_ to think.

"Hey, you okay?" Sam murmurs as Dean sits down heavily on the couch.

Dean rubs at the bridge of his nose. Every inch of research method Dad drilled into them rolls through his head on repeat. He's trying to poke holes in this, to see the smoke, the mirrors, the tell, to find the loose leg, to sniff out the lie in what Ellen, Ellen Goddamn Harvelle, is telling him and coming up with nothing, zippo, nada that does _anything_ to debunk Mom- his mom- being—

Being in the life. A part of it. All of it. But not just a part of it, not just a hunter, but a hunter who-knows-how-many-generations deep, apparently a member or an escapee from some weird-ass hunter cult enclave and just- just—

What is Dean supposed to _do_ with- with _all_ of that?

"Dean?" Sam repeats.

His hand comes down on Dean's shoulder, anchoring him, centering him, giving him something else to focus on as it makes slow, solid progress across his back, down, something other than Mom and hunting cults and how the hell Ellen Goddamn Harvelle could go from one of the sanest people in Dean's world to one of the craziest in the blink of a goddamn eye.

"Cults? Seriously?" he mutters, hand scrubbing across his face.

This is all completely ignoring the fact that if Mom had been a hunter, had been active and in the goddamn life, they would have known. _Dad_ would have known. He'd loved Mom more than anyone. There's no possible way he could have missed something that _big_. It doesn't make sense, doesn't track, doesn't fit at all with the woman she was, the mother Dean knew.

Or thought he knew.

And he could kind of maybe start to wrap his head around her tryin' to get out, her breakin' away like Sammy or Jo, but now Ellen's got to go and hit him with this whole weird Campell-Hunting-Cult crap and it's just- it's just—

There's only so much a guy can wrap his head around in a day, dammit.

"Look," Ellen offers, not unkindly, "I'm not sayin' she was huntin' ghouls instead of pickin' you up from preschool. I'm sayin' she was raised in the life by a bunch that takes the life pretty damn serious. And maybe she kept up with it, maybe she didn't."

Ellen casts a long, rueful look over her shoulder, to the front door Jo slammed for the last time barely an hour ago, then down at the simple, battered gold band on her left ring finger.

"Lord knows she wouldn't be the first to light out and never look back." She sighs, then looks up at him, voice simple, straightforward, every bit as honest and unflinching as the woman herself. "But whoever she was, her family is who they are, and Campbells?"

"Well," she snorts, "not to politic too much, but let's just say I was goddamn glad it was Deanna that married into them and not me."

It's not much. God knows it's not the total retreat Dean was hoping for in the soft, stupid center of himself, the part scared and screaming as Ellen and evidence pile up and pile on every goddamn thing Dean would have sworn up down and sideways he knew about his mom yesterday.

"You're sure?" Sam presses, stepping up and taking the weight from Dean's shoulders, letting him just fall back, sink into the slow, steady, up and down of Sam's hand on his back, between his shoulders, for just a second, just long enough to catch his breath, to get a head start on rebuilding his goddamn worldview from the ground up. "Sure about all of this? Our grandmother, our mom, her family—"

"Might not wanna be." Ellen sighs, resting a hip against Bobby's desk as she scans the papers scattered across it again. "Means that all of this is gonna get a hell of a lot harder before it gets easier, but that don't change the fact that I am."

She sighs, slow and heavy.

"I'm sorry, Sam, honey. I can't think what it's gotta be like, you boys findin' out this way."

Sam just shakes his head. His eyes flick toward Dean, and he gives Ellen an abortive half-shrug. Sam sighs, collapses beside his brother on Bobby's stained, sagging excuse for a couch. Apparently he's got his limits on this shit, too, needs just as bad as Dean does to take a goddamn minute and fucking _assimilate_. Thank god, because that's a hell of a lot easier for Dean to do crammed against six-feet and five inches of tired, achy, every-bit-as-sick-of-this-shit little brother.

And you know, thank fucking god Sammy's got a limit on this crap. Thank fucking god he's having just as hard a time imagining Mom, _their Mom_, in the goddamn Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Hunters, because if Dean were alone on this one? _God._

He slumps into Sam's side, not enough that Ellen or Bobby would notice anything watchin' 'em, just enough that he can feel Sam next to him that little bit more. Just enough that Sam leans back into him in response, gives Dean that little confirmation that he's here, that even if Dean's got nothing else, he's got Sam, that heat against his side, that pulse against his wrist, that heartbeat against his ribs, solid and steady and real.

If nothing else, he can count on Sam.

If nothing else, he can trust in Sam.

"Well," Bobby breaks in, causing Dean and Sam to look up in unison. "We've got one question answered then. If the Campbell's were in Lawrence in '73 and that demon was around, I think we got a damn good idea what they were doin'."

"They were on a case." Sam nods, bracing his elbows on his knees and shoving a hand through his hair with a heavy sigh as he leans forward.

"No," Bobby corrects, "they were on _your_case."

That line's back between Sam's brows, nose going all crinkled as he works through this at Dean's side.

"Ellen, you said Samuel Campbell died thirty years ago?" Bobby leads.

"Same night as Deanna," Ellen nods. "'Least that's what I heard."

"You think it was connected to this case?" Sam demands, rising from the couch and looking between Bobby and Ellen as he crosses to the desk. "To the Demon?"

Ellen shakes her head.

"Sorry, boys, but I just don't know. When that ring went on her finger, Deanna was out of our family and into theirs. Never heard much from her after that."

"Then we need to look into our grandfather and grandmother—"

"And you'll find whatever story the family left for 'em," Bobby interjects, holding up a sheaf of documents. "Hell, half the stuff we got now is probably bullshit. Slapped together and filed as cover by one Campbell or another to either let them do what they were doin' or to cover it up after the fact."

"You want answers, you're gonna have to go to the source," Ellen agrees.

"Call someone, then," Sam says. "Whoever was there back in the day, whoever you've got on tap that could get us somewhere with this."

Dean glares at him. Yeah, sure, another hunter is _exactly_ what they need right now. Jesus Christ, this keeps goin' they're gonna have to sell _tickets_ to this shit-show.

Bobby snorts. "Because there's a back issue of the damn newsletter they can dig out for us?"

"Another hunter's gonna be worth jack-shit on this one, honey." Ellen shakes her head. "These people work fast, and they work tight. Campbell cases mean Campbell covers and only Campbells knowing what's going on underneath 'em_."_

"All right, then we don't have a choice." Sam nods, and God, Dean could just about murder his brother _himself_. "Bobby, you got a number?"

Ellen and Bobby share a dry laugh.

"Sam, Campbells don't talk to—" Ellen breaks off, looks like she's searching for a delicate way to put this. "Let's just say, if you weren't born into their slice of the life, they're not takin' your calls."

Bobby sobers up, shooting her a speculative glance.

"Well now, Ellen..." he starts.

Ellen whirls on him. "Aw, _hell_ no."

"Come on, El," Bobby goads, smirk hiding in the shadow of his beard. "You still got your little black book?"

Ellen crosses her arms, eyes narrowing.

"You call it that again, and I'm gonna spike it at your damn head," she snarls, sending Bobby a nasty look. "I'm not old enough and you're not fast enough for you to escape a whoopin' from me, Bobby Singer."

"Ellen, please?" Sam asks, and oh hell, he's got the 'kicked puppy' look ratcheted up to eleven, which means Ellen might not know it, but she's already dead in the water.

Ellen looks around the room, from Sam's wounded Bambi impression to Bobby's expectant gaze to him, and Dean doesn't know what his own face looks like right now, but Ellen takes a moment to stare at it intently. She stands and shoves past Bobby's desk, looking bitter and resigned and every bit her daughter's mother.

"_Fine._Guess I can shake the family phone tree, see what the hell falls out," she grumbles. "But just so you know? I cannot _stand_ these people. There's a reason I left, and it wasn't 'cause I just couldn't resist the many and varied goddamn charms of runnin' a dive bar in East Bumfuck, Nebraska."

She stomps out of the study, banging her way to the back bedroom in a manner eerily reminiscent of her daughter. A couple of seconds later, she storms back in and nearly shoves Bobby out of his desk chair to plop herself down in front of his cracked rotary phone. She slaps a battered, yellowing pocket address book on top of the hurricane of copies and references and starts to dial.

"One family fucking reunion, coming up," she growls.

"El, anyone ever tell you you're a delicate flower?" Bobby asks giving her wide berth as she continues to beat the dial into submission.

"Every day of my goddamn life, Bobby Singer," Ellen snaps, listening to the ring echoing on the other end of the line. "Now why don't you and the boys give me some goddamn room to work and go makes yourselves useful?"

"Yes, ma'am." Bobby snorts under his breath, dodging Ellen's swats at him as he herds Sam and Dean out the front door.


	67. Chapter 67

Thank you to our lovely reviewers! Your comments mean so much to us. Enjoy the chapter!

* * *

><p>"Gonna catch flies like that." Bobby smirks, cocking an eyebrow at Sam and Dean's open mouthed stares.<p>

He hefts one of the duffels Jo flung from the back of the Harvelle's truck and makes for the side door.

"What are you two standin' around for? We got our orders." He jerks his head at the flotsam and jetsam of soot-stained boxes and the occasional cinder-streaked bag strewn over Bobby's lawn in the wake of Hurricane Jo. "Make yourselves useful."

It doesn't take much more than that for them to set to hauling, taking the long way around the house and in through the back door, leaving Ellen to her work.

Half an hour later, the singed, stained sum of the Harvelle's worldly possessions are squared away in the back bedroom and Dean, Sam, and Bobby have no choice but to face Ellen again in the study.

Eventually.

"What are you waitin' for?" Bobby grumbles under his breath as they pause in the hall. He gives Dean a shove towards the doorway. "Go on, then."

"What?" Dean hisses. "Why do I gotta be the one to go first? Make Sam go!"

"She likes him." The older hunter snorts. "Way I see it, she tears you a new one, warms up to Jumbo there, and then I get in and out Scot-free."

Sam and Dean might not be masters of the touchy-feely, but they've spent a lifetime with one another, taken more breaths together than apart, lived and nearly died within a heartbeat of one another more times than they can count on a hundred hundred hunts, taken on things they didn't even have a name for with only each other to rely on, their continued existence hinging on reading one another in the middle of a fight to the point of near-telepathy.

So when their eyes met over Bobby's head in that dim, dusty back hall, there is absolutely no question as to what's gonna happen.

In the blink of an eye they grab the meat of Bobby's upper arms, give the older hunter one good, solid heft in the general direction of the study, and then stand back to admire their work as he stumbles into Ellen Harvelle, sour and snarling at the desk. She slams the phone down into the cradle and pours herself a drink.

"I can't stand these people, Bobby," she bites out. "Cannot _stand_ them."

"If you hate hunters so much, why'd you open a damn hunter's bar, Ellen?" Bobby grumbles. He straights his shirt and shoots a glare over his shoulder at Sam and Dean as they file cautiously into the room.

"It was either that or have my cousins show up on my doorstep every six months," Ellen mutters into her glass. "At least this way, I could charge 'em for the booze."

"So, your phone call…" Sam starts from his place at Dean's side, only to very tactfully trail off and avoid eye contact.

Not that Dean can really blame Sam on this one. You get the feeling that meeting the eye of a pissed-off Ellen Harvelle ranks somewhere between "Facing Down a Charging Rhino" and "Bare Knuckle Boxing Wolverine" on the "Only Few Have Done It and Lived to Tell the Tale" scale.

It's more than enough for Ellen to go on, though, and she picks up like a champ, rolling her eyes as she shoves up from the desk to start slamming books into orderly stacks on the margins of Bobby's dusty study.

"Assumin' I _check out_, we got a meet in the morning," she snaps, slapping away at a cloud of dust that wells up in the wake of one particularly vicious _thump_. "Now give me some space. I need to hate your daddy and drink some liquor."

"How's this our dad's fault?" Dean waves away the cloud of dust stinging at his eyes and elbowing Sam back, much to his little brother's annoyance. Which, you know, most people would like to NOT inhale whatever the crap is dusting up Bobby's study, but hey, Sammy wants to breathe deep and put himself in a fucking iron lung? Dean half wants to goddamn let him, just for the post-apocalyptic-wheezing "I told you so."

"Honey, I could write a goddamn book," Ellen grumbles, shoving a cigar box of Tibetan ritual vajras aside and thwacking dust from Bobby's mantle, "and page one'd be how you're here dealin' with this yourselves and he's god knows where doin' god knows what. 'Father' my nicely rounded buttocks."

Sam tries to stifle a laugh behind Dean and ends up exploding into a hurricane of dizzy, dusty coughs.

"Now would you get your brother out of this pig sty, leave a woman to her goddamn thoughts?" Ellen says, rounding on a bookcase.

It's around the time he's herding a wincing, wheezing Sam out of the study that Dean realizes Ellen isn't exactly aware of the fact that not three days ago, John left Sam to die in a burning building and probably played a pretty big goddamn part in Dean's getting roofied and put on a goddamn bus.

…Yeah, the mood she's in? If she's gotta find out about that shit, Dean's not gonna be the one to tell her.

"Come on, boys," Bobby rumbles, helping Dean heft Sam into the comparatively clean air of the kitchen. "Let's work on gettin' dinner on."

Between Bobby grumbling orders from the stove, Ellen rage-cleaning the old study's ass towards neatness and respectability, and Sam constantly trying to do shit that'll fucking destroy his burned goddamn lungs, there's more than enough mindless grunt work to keep Dean's hands busy and his brain firmly in the 'off' position for the rest of the afternoon and through dinner. Even then, by the time he and Sam wash up and topple into the smooth, worn-soft ocean of comforter and crisp, clean sheets of the upstairs bedroom, thinking's still at the very bottom of the list if things he'd like to goddamn do.

"So…" Sam starts beside him, because of course.

"So?" Dean huffs into the pillow, flopping over and away from Sam in the bed and making sure he 'accidentally' kicks his brother in the shin with the motion, just so Sammy knows how not into this whole "talking" thing he is.

"You wanna talk about any of that?" Sam asks, ignoring Dean's blatantly obvious body language in favor of his perpetual hard-on for dissecting every goddamn thing with long, girly feelings talks.

"No," Dean grumbles, snapping the sheet higher around his shoulders and purposefully stealing about a third of the blanket from Sam.

"You wanna talk about anything from earlier?" Sam tries again, voice too-carefully neutral as he ignores Dean's aggressive re-appropriation of the bedding with zen-like serenity.

"No," Dean snaps, seriously considering stealing Sam's goddamn pillow if only to have something to squash over his head to drown out stupid, obvious goddamn questions.

"You wanna talk about anything at all?" his brother continues, because they've learned a fuck-ton of shit today and yeah, maybe they should talk about it. Maybe someone in touch with his goddamn feelings would recognize that shit and tackle it, but Dean's tired, goddamn it, and he's had enough to swallow today without having to hurl it all up and go through the mess after the fact. All he wants to do is shut his eyes and go to goddamn sleep.

"No," he growls, putting every ounce of "Just Goddamn Leave It, Sam" he's got into the syllable.

"You wanna go to sleep and pretend none of this shit's happening?" Sam offers with more than a hint of laughter in his voice. He snags his corner of the blankets and gives one sharp, swift jerk so Dean is sent spinning, flopping on his back as Sam steals back the covers Dean hijacked and more as he snickers into his own pillow.

"Sweet Jesus, yes," Dean breathes once he's gotten his wind back, kicking a leg together with Sam's as he steals back some of the sheets, scooting close to horn in on Sammy's pillow real estate.

"Sounds good," his brother agrees in a rare moment of finally talkin' fucking sense. He coots forward and settles into the mattress as Dean burrows into his insanely more comfortable pillow, comfy and secure in their mutual refusal to acknowledge any of the weird and increasingly mind-fucky shit being heaped on them on a daily basis.

Because they might not have a dad that doesn't want to try and off one or both of them when shit gets tough. They might not have had a mom who wasn't a possible psychotic hunting cult escapee. They might not have an immediate future that doesn't involve unlearning everything they ever thought they knew about their family and using whatever's left to take on some psychic-army-building demon asshole who makes every other thing they've hunted look like a Scooby Doo villain.

But they've got each other.

They've got each other, and they've got this, and that's all they need.

As long as they've got this, they don't have to worry.

At least, that's what Dean tells himself. Still, no matter how hard he tries to just tune out and turn off, to shove down all this crap that's rising, he just can't get a lid on it.

"Thinkin' pretty loud back there," Sam murmurs quietly into the dark.

"Already told ya, Sammy—"

"I'm not trying to talk about it," Sam cuts him off. "I just—"

He huffs out a frustrated breath into the dim and almost chokes on it because of the breathing exercises he _refuses to do_. Dean elbows up to help him, but the coughing fit dies off as quickly as it came.

"I'll listen," Sam tries again on a wheeze. "I won't do anything but listen."

Dean snorts in disbelief, flopping back down to elbow Sam from his back, and Sam nudges him in retaliation before the scuffle dies down, the quiet descends again into the hushed rustle of sheets and the slow, steady hum of the air conditioner cutting through the night. Dean stares resolutely through the dark at the blank, white expanse of the ceiling, the lazy, almost hypnotic whirl of the ceiling fan, as he does his goddamn best to let everything else in the room fall away.

"She knew," he starts off suddenly, giving up his fight to hold back the thoughts pounding and punching away in his head. "About the life. Hunting. Everything. She knew and she didn't tell us. Someone like her- Well, like- like we always told ourselves she was—"

He has to break off, to correct himself, and he hates it, hates his life and everyone in it for destroying everything he knew about his mother, _their_ mother, the woman who sang him to sleep and cut the crusts off his sandwiches and helped him find just the right spot on Baby Sammy's round little tummy that would make him squirm and giggle every single time, and if that wasn't her, was just some con or cover—

He can't. Can't finish that thought. Not even now, after everything they've learned.

"You tell 'em," he tries again, words tearing apart the silence of the room. "You love someone, they mean that much to you, and you got somethin' like that in your back pocket- don't matter what- you tell 'em. That's- that's how it should be."

True to his word, Sam stays quiet, long enough and loud enough for the words to echo back to Dean, to smack him right in the face and sting hard.

"Sam," Dean winces as the tension wrenches through Sam, turns him tight and rigid at Dean's side. He wants to backtrack, to apologize, but Sammy doesn't let him get that far.

"You tell them," Sam agrees, never turning over, his back one long, hot angry line of muscle at Dean's side. "Like you and Dad told me about the Demon Blood. Like you told me about Yellow Eyes and his plans for me and all the kids like me. Of course you tell them! You tell them like I told you both about me being into guys and I told Jess about hunting and Dad told me about you going missing. Like you and Dad both told _me_ about all this crap when _I_ was little!"

His shoulders are shaking, his voice harsh and tight and never giving up, never giving in, never giving an inch.

"You tell them, right, Dean?" he demands. "Because we Winchesters are such open and honest fucking individuals. Of course you tell someone when they've got something like this in their back yard, 'cause when we're on a case, the first thing we do is sit each and every goddamn civilian down and tell them the truth about what's out there, what's _really_ going on."

"Sam—"

"That's _bullshit_, Dean!" Sam spits out. He rockets upright in bed and tosses the covers aside to he turn, glaring furiously at his brother in the dim. "It's bullshit! It's bullshit to act like we're any more honest than she was and it's bullshit to say that you or me or Dad would have done any different. And it's bullshit to act like this, all of this, isn't just because everyone's telling us something about Mom that you don't want to hear!"

"Sam—" Dean tries to cut in again, elbowing up on the bed.

"She was a hunter, Dean," Sam steamrolls right over him with a furious gesture that damn near takes Dean's nose off in the dark. "She was in deep and she got out, and I don't blame her for one second, not _one_. She didn't want this life. She didn't want it for herself and she didn't want it for us, and you acting like she did wrong by us, by you, by doing anything other than keeping it a goddamn secret is- is _stupid!_"

Sam shakes his head, shoves his hands through the sleep-tousled chaos of his hair in frustration.

"It's _stupid_ and _wrong_ and a disgrace to her memory," he continues. "She left _everything_, Dean! She gave Dad fifteen good goddamn years and you a happy goddamn childhood and me—"

Sam breaks off, hits on the hole in his big goddamn stream of consciousness vindication of their Mom that somehow, happily, conveniently wipes the slate clean without addressing a pretty huge fucking issue that they have yet to fucking deal with.

"What, Sam?" Dean demands, voice hard and sharp and fine, they're going there? They're going all the goddamn way. "What'd she give you?"

"I don't matter," his brother mutters into the dark. He'd be avoiding Dean's eye if there were a single goddamn light on in this goddamn room, but as it is, Dean knows just what Sam looks like right now. He's seen that look too many goddamn times these past few months, watched his brother staring down the monster he most-definitely-goddamn-isn't too often not to know the lines by heart.

"The _hell_ you don't," Dean snaps, because he's not letting Sam get away with that. Not again. Not this time, and especially not after that whole 'You Should Have Left Me to Goddamn Die' bullshit in the junkyard earlier. "Finish your fucking sentence, Sam. What'd she give you? The shock of a goddamn lifetime? The worst fucking surprise since you blew up that goddamn cabinet, since your first fucking vision?"

His fists clench tight in the bedsheets, his jaw clenched tight.

"No matter what she might have done for me or for Dad," he grinds out, "no matter what she might have sacrificed for our family, all you get is black blood and an executive internship in the Seventh Circle. Even if she was a fucking _saint_, everything me or Dad ever swore up and down she was, she still left you out in the cold. Still screwed you big time, and worse, she screwed you big time _knowing_ she was screwing you big time. She _knew_."

Dean is panting, furious, and it might be at Mom and it might be at himself and it might even be at goddamn Sam for just, just _taking_ this, for just swallowing it all and not fighting back. All Dean knows, all he can process right now, is that _Sam_ is hurting and _he's_ hurting and somehow, _somehow_ this all leads back to Mom, and that is _wrong_, so wrong it hurts, _burns_ right down inside of him, because it's not that he can't see it anymore. No, it's so much worse. Now he can't see anything _but_ this, anything but this and what it means for Sam and Mom, HIS MOM, she- she—

"She knew what she was doing to you. She knew _exactly_ what she was doing to you, and she did it anyway."

"She had reasons," Sam offers, quiet and apologetic and with just that tiny, fragile hint of hope that Dean hates for being so beaten down, so breakable. "She had to have had reasons."

"That doesn't make it okay," he gravels, shaking his head in the dark and not forgiving, not moving a goddamn inch. If Sam won't factor his goddamn self into this fucking equation, Dean's gonna do it for him, no matter what- or who- he has to sacrifice.

"Dean…"

"Road to hell, Sammy. _Your_ road to hell." Dean squeezes his shut in dark, voice unforgivably thick. "And she laid every goddamn brick."

"Yellow Eyes played her, Dean," Sam presses. "He had to have played her. You know what he's like, what they're all like."

"I do." Dean nods, swallowing hard. "And I hate 'em for it. The way they are and the way they keep comin' after every single goddamn one of us, and _she did that_. How- How'm I supposed to deal with the fact that she did that? To us? To _you?"_

Sam makes a soft abortive noise, and Dean presses on, his voice a low growl.

"I mean, we just swore off Dad for tryin' and now- Now it's Mom, too? Who do we gotta write off next, Sammy? Who else's gonna turn up on Yellow Eyes' payroll? Who else we gotta give up on havin' our back?" He shoves his hands through the bristle of his hair and tipping his head back on a tight, too-thick sigh.

"I'm not giving up on her," Sam swears softly into the dark, after a long, heavy silence that lets them both ignore how rough their voices are getting, how this, none of this, would stand coming out in the light.

"Sam," Dean shakes his head, unable to believe just how far Sam's gonna drag this now, but Sammy, annoying know-it-all to the very end, doesn't let him get any further.

"Think about it, Dean," he presses, like Dean hasn't thought more than enough about all of this shit ever since it started to come out. "She loses her mom and dad in the same night, on the same case? She makes a Deal at the exact same time, goes civilian for ten years, then gets blindsided just as the Deal comes due? It doesn't add up, Dean."

Sam shakes his head, hands going here and there across the sheets like they're itching for pen and paper, for maps and newspaper clippings and an infographic to point to tacked on the wall somewhere.

"It just doesn't add up," he repeats. "If she was raised in the life, was as deep in it as we keep hearin', why wasn't the house protected? She knew her time was running out. Why didn't she try to do something to get away? If only so that we didn't get caught in the crossfire? There's something going on here, Dean, something we're not getting. So until we've got it all, I'm not giving up on her. I'm waiting until we have the whole damn picture because that—"

He breaks off, sucks in a tight breath and huffs it out as they both remember how well suddenly getting the whole damn picture worked out for everyone last time, with Yellow Eyes Megging up and pulling the rug out from under them as he infodumped Sam into a shivering, seizing, swearing fury.

"Well, that can change a hell of a lot," Sam bites out after a long, tense pause, one full of everything they've shoved aside for the sake of the case. All the fights about secrets kept and promises broken and trusts betrayed and for all his goddamn talk about family and trust and debts and duty Dean fucking lied to his little brother.

He lied to him, and no matter how many rounds he puts in how many baddies, no matter how many doors he kicks in or burning buildings he pulls Sam out of, he's never gonna be able to make that one right.

"I'm sorry, Sammy," he tries, just _tries_, a drop in the bucket and a straw that doesn't even begin to break the camel's back, and it's not enough, never gonna be enough and—

"No you're not." Sam snorts, breaking Dean's train of thought.

"What?"

"You're not sorry," Sam repeats, and Dean can hear his 'Do I Really Have to Explain This?' face, doesn't need to see the details of Sam's expression to get that much. "You'd do it again. You'd try again and again to protect me from what they did, even if it meant keeping me in the dark. Maybe you regret making me mad and maybe you feel guilty about keeping it a secret, but you're not sorry."

Sam shrugs, the motion jostling his shoulder against Dean's own.

"Something like that? Protecting me, the best way you knew how?" Sam sighs, shakes his head as he laughs, just a little, in the dim hush of the room. "Say the words all you want, Dean, but we both know you're not sorry."

"Yeah, well you're…. dumb." Dean tosses back in a rejoinder that will certainly last the ages.

"Non-apology accepted," Sam says, flopping back on the pillow with an explosive _whump_.

"'Accepted,'" Dean repeats, because Sammy's not the only wordsmith in the family. "Not forgiven, huh?"

"You weren't going to tell me I had demon blood. It's not exactly a 'forgive and forget' thing, Dean. Sure, I'm not over it, but I'm not holding it against you, either." Sam shrugs against the mattress and begins the process of kicking the sheets back into some semblance of sheet-hood.

"See, I don't get that," Dean presses, making sure Sam doesn't steal the covers like the blanket-thieving bedding-hog he not-so-secretly is.

"I know you don't," Sam says, securing the most comfy regions of the comfy pillow.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean demands, giving the pillow a sharp tug to broth emphasize his point.

"It means you're still holding a grudge against the guys who took my lunch money in the third grade, Dean!" Sam laughs.

"Those guys were like, twice your size and loaded!" Dean protests, flat out plonking his head down and poking Sam in the ribs until he caves and gives over on the pillow front.

"Which everyone on the playground found out when you zip-tied them to the bike racks, took _their_ lunch money, and then hotwired a car to pawn their bikes two towns over!" Sam tosses back through a chuckle, not-at-all manly giggle popping out when Dean hits that spot on his stomach, just like always.

"Should have known better than to mess with my little brother." Dean nods, satisfied grin sneaking across his face, despite everything.

"You're an idiot." Sam sighs, just giving up and turning over to bury his face in Dean's shoulder and render the pillow war moot.

"You love it." Dean shrugs, carding his fingers lazily through the hectic, tousled mess of his brother's hair as Sam shifts against him.

"Yeah, right."

Sam's free hand skirts over Dean's chest, lands here, then there, like he doesn't know quite what to do with it, like it doesn't belong tangled in the hem of Dean's t-shirt or caught in the cord of his amulet or curled protectively over the scything, silvery barrage of scars over the arch of his neck. Like they haven't done this a thousand times over and won't do it a thousand times again.

Maybe it's because of all this with Mom or maybe because of Sammy's crack about forgive and forget, about things being over but not being done that has him speaking up, opening his mouth before he can stick his foot in there and let something else, another goddamn thing, slip past them and get completely fucking out of hand.

"Hey, Sammy," he murmurs, and he doesn't know why he thinks of the pitch of Sam's voice in the shower this morning, of the restless, desperate hitches of his little brother's voice when he was teetering, just a breath away from tipping over the edge.

"Yeah, Dean?"

"If you were hiding somethin' big like Mom, you'd tell me right?" Dean asks. He has to close his eyes as the words come out, can't believe he's insecure or girly enough to need them said aloud. "No lettin' me find out from Ellen fifteen years down the line, havin' Bobby read it to me in my damn tea leaves?"

Sam is silent for a moment, his fingers twisting in the cord of Dean's amulet, and then he nods, his hair a soft rustle against the pillow.

"Yeah, Dean," he whispers. "Of course."

Dean lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He sinks deep down into the mattress, tugs the sheet over them both and curls, just a little, into the warmth of Sam, long and lean against him.

Of course.

After the week they've had, what else could there possibly be to tell?


	68. Chapter 68

Have we mentioned lately how much we love each and every single one of you guys for leaving reviews. You are the best! We LIVE for those reactions. And as a thank you present, please enjoy the events of this chapter. I know some of you have been chomping at the bit for it!

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><p>It's got to be the guilt.<p>

It's got to be the guilt that has him dreaming of Dean, devil-may-care and grinning, quick and quipping and sharp and smirking as he fists one of those rough, strong hands in Sam's hair, tugs his head aside so he can lay a string of brutal, biting kisses along the line of Sam's neck.

In the dream, Sam whines and writhes, digs his fingers into the broad expanse of his brother's shoulders. He tries to wrestle back some of the control, can't stop himself from bucking his hips in search of more contact, some relief for the hot, heady pressure building between his legs, but Dean's as unmovable as a brick wall, leaving a trail of kisses up his neck, sucking another livid mark just under Sam's jawline. Sam clutches at Dean's shirt, tries again to wriggle from his grasp, and Dean nips at his throat, sudden and sharp. Sam jerks, kicks out and nails his brother right in the knee in retaliation as he lets out a hot, frustrated groan.

Dean snorts but finally relents, his hand letting go of Sam's hair in favor of moving downward, skimming over his hip, palming at his ass, and then grasping him firmly by the thigh, yanking Sam down and up and finally, _finally_ giving him the leverage he needs to press his hips against Dean's in a familiar, heady rhythm. Sam hums in approval, splays his legs wider, locks their calves together so he can get in tighter, rock harder against Dean. Every tight, twisting grind of their bodies sends another hot pulse of pleasure through him, ratchets him that much higher, that much tighter, makes him want it that much hotter, that much faster.

Dean's free hand clutches at Sam's neck, and he presses their foreheads tight together, noses bumping lightly as they gasp and pant, groaning and greedy and dizzy. Sam struggles to crack his eyes open, wants to _see_, wants to close the distance and press his lips against his brother's, but the light that filters through the fan of his lashes is so bright it hurts and Dean's mouth remains infuriatingly, tantalizingly just out his of reach.

Sam cups both palms against the back of Dean's warm, freckled neck, tries to tug him closer, to feel him that much more, but he gets distracted by the rasp of short-cropped hair against his palm and the pressure of Dean's arousal against his own, stronger now, more insistent. Sam abandons his quest for a kiss in favor of trying to get a hand on Dean, murmuring his brother's name, trying to keep the rhythm steady, trying to make this last that much longer, because it's good, it's too good, and Sam isn't ready for it to end, not now, not yet, _God, he doesn't want to stop dreaming—_

And God, Sam's got it bad, worse, the worst ever, because even in his head Dean is Dean, getting a fistful of Sam's shirt and a hand on his hip and just fucking turning it up to eleven, chuckling through a groan and laying a teasing, punishing kiss on him, hot and filthy and more bite than anything as he grinds harder, drives them faster, higher, harder, hard enough to have Sam's head spinning as he gasps his brother's name on a groaning, grinding exhale. Dean's fingers tangle around his and twist, taking the wheel and driving them right off a cliff as he rasps Sam's name into his mouth, gives one more hot, dirty twist, and that's it for Sam. He's coming apart, groaning and shaking and losing grip on everything but Dean, everywhere and everything and the only thing, the only thing he ever wanted, the only thing he ever needed like this, _just like this_…

For a few short, blissful moments, Sam lies suspended at the very edge of consciousness, unable to process anything beyond a sleepy appreciation for the soft, comfy bed, the warm body pressed against his own, and the aftershocks of a truly fantastic orgasm.

But then there's a familiar and very real groan rumbling against his ear, and his eyes snap open, catching sight of Dean flopping heavily onto his back for half a second before Sam squeezes them shut again, claps his palms against his face. Realization hits him all at once, a sucker punch of horror and humiliation so strong he curls in on himself against it. His stomach turns over and his head goes fuzzy, and he can't think, can't _breathe_, because he just- he really- _again_- and God, what the hell is _wrong_ with him?

"Dude," Dean rumbles next to him, voice lazy and sleepy and _filthy_ with how gravelly it is, how fucked-out and dirty it sounds, "would you quit freaking out? You're screwing up my afterglow."

Sam pulls his hands away from his face to stare at him, mouth hanging open.

"Your _what_?"

"Afterglow," Dean repeats, slow and smoky and like Sam might be just a little bit concussed, like this is a totally normal and not-at-all-horrifying thing to wake up to.

Through the drowsy, stupid echoes of sex, there's a little bit of surprise in his brother's voice, but there's no trace of the totally justified rage Sam would expect from someone whose little brother keeps molesting him in his fucking sleep. Sam's still far too horrified to feel relief.

"I-" he stammers."Dean, I- I'm so sorry. I don't—"

"Mmm," Dean interrupts, stretching his arms languidly overhead. "Don't worry about it. 'Least I got my reach-around this time."

Sam flushes at the memory of warm skin against his palm, Dean's voice gasping in his ear, and apparently that part was real, too. _Fuck._

"Oh my God," he groans, burying his face in his pillow.

"Sammy," his brother snorts. "Seriously, cut it out. _Afterglow_."

Sam makes a low, distressed sound into the pillow.

"Fine," Dean grouses. "Since apparently I'm not gonna be allowed to enjoy this."

He rolls out of the bed with a vigor and speed usually reserved for the elderly.

"I'm gonna grab a shower. You joining?"

"_What?!_" Sam bursts out, sitting up with a jolt.

Dean raises his palms, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

"I'm kidding, Sammy. Jesus."

"Dean, this isn't funny!" Sam exclaims indignantly.

His brother shrugs unapologetically.

"Dude, you keep blowing your load in your sleep like you're fifteen again. C'mon, even you have to admit it's kinda funny."

"No, it's not," Sam insists, because if that was it, if it was just wet dreams or a few inappropriate hard-ons, that'd be one thing, but this is so far beyond that. God, he got a _hand_ on Dean this time. Even for his brother, the king of denial, that should be impossible to rationalize.

Except, apparently, Dean's decided he's gonna give it his very best goddamn shot.

"Sam, seriously, it happens," he says dismissively. "Relax. Everything we've learned the past couple of days, all the demons and psychics and hunting cults and church-burning crazy, and you're really gonna freak out just because you had a wet dream in bed with another dude?"

And that's- that's not even a little bit what just happened, but Dean's selective memory isn't even the issue here because—

"You're not just some other dude, Dean! You're my _brother!_"

"Exactly," Dean says stubbornly. "I watched you go through puberty, Sam. It's not like this is new. Plus, I already know you sail under the rainbow flag, I'm cool with it, and I'm not gonna read anything weird into this, so—"

"This _is_ weird, Dean!" Sam explodes, clamoring to his feet and gesturing between them. "This? This is not normal!"

And right now, in this moment, he's not even worried about keeping his deeply wrong feelings for his brother a secret, because holy shit! This is the demon's blood argument all over again, and apparently Dean isn't just content to blow off demonic powers, apocalyptic visions, and being _raised from the fucking dead_, he's also completely willing to justify incestuous bad-touching. Jesus Christ, when did their relationship get _this fucked up_?

"Well, what do you wanna do about it, Sammy?" Dean demands. "You gonna sexile me to another bed every time you can't work a jack-off session in? Fine. Whatever."

"No, I don't want to—" Sam sputters. "I just- We have to talk about this, Dean!"

Dean snorts.

"Yeah, no. It's way too early for me to be playing Doctor Freud for you. Just let it go, man."

"But Dean-"

"I said leave it, Sam!" Dean snaps with such sudden vehemence that Sam retreats a few steps involuntarily.

"Dean!" he protests again, only to have the bathroom door slammed in his face.

He listens for a few moments as his brother stomps around on the tile, rattling around and slamming cabinets, before he finally pulls the shower curtain closed violently and drowns out the rest with the sound of the shower spray.

Sam sinks back down onto the bed, feeling rumpled, sticky, and like he's somehow missed something very important.


	69. Chapter 69

Hey, everyone! Just letting you know, we'll be taking a break from now until September 13th to concentrate on grad school and work. We've got so much coming up that we're just not going to be able to keep up the schedule without going crazy (and without a dramatic slip in writing quality, which would really upset us). Thanks for understanding! We love you guys!

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><p>Whatever it is, Dean's not talking. Not through the door as he showers and not after, when he as good as throws the bathroom door open to clear out and let Sam clean up.<p>

It's just one long, tense silence that stretches and eats up the spaces in their orbit that should be filled with idle chatter about hunting and head-banging rock, the two of them teasing and taunting and arguing over whether or not Dean really did score with a girl flexible enough to lick her own elbow and what the point of that would even be between the sheets.

Dean's still there, though, waiting impatiently when Sam comes out of the shower, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans as he leans against the doorjamb. While Sam gets dressed, Dean never once makes eye contact and doesn't give him anything more than a "Leave it, Sam," every time his brother so much as opens his mouth to broach the issue, but really, what's Sam supposed to do here?!

What happened, that _was_ weird. Out of bounds, even for them. Jesus Christ, Sam stole third in Dean's sleep, and Dean- he's gotta be freaking out about it. Maybe not on the outside, and maybe not out loud, but Sam knows what Dean does when something bugs him. Goddammit, no matter how many times Dean might tell him to just leave it, he knows what his brother's "Thinking Over Shit" face looks like, and the one Dean's sporting as they make their way silently downstairs for breakfast? That's fucking it!

So either Dean's silently digging himself further and further into a pit of denial that'll let him poke his overly-styled hair up somewhere jacking off your brother is totally normal, or he's pulling apart what just happened in his head and figuring out that Sam's a handsy demon-blood-having brother-crush-sporting homo freak who he should just ditch on the side of the road somewhere before he wakes up and finds Sam acting out some of the more active and graphic scenes from last night's dream-turned-nightmare in tanned, freckled, sweaty 3D.

God, he is _so_ going to hell for this.

Because no matter what mental gymnastics Dean puts himself through to turn out an argument where this is all normal or anything resembling okay, Sam did it. He did it and now Dean's ignoring it for him, which means Sam's just gonna _keep_ doing it and keep making it worse. And even if Dean doesn't hate him for it now, he's going to soon. Sam doesn't want to wake up one day with Dean looking at him like Dad used to, like this newest disaster is just the latest in stupid, annoying stunts Sam can't help but pull, that he has to put up with because the only other option would be going out for milk one day and never coming back. In a way, Sam _wants_ him to, wants him to just cut and run because for all he's trying to stop this, trying to squash this latest fucked-up twist on his thing with Dean, _their_ thing, he's failing. _Hard._

He's failing and falling and with things the way they are- with _them_ the way they are- he just- he doesn't know what to do about it.

Because Dean's not leaving.

Definitely maybe working his way toward hating Sam's brother-molesting guts someday, but not leaving. Not now that he's made seeing Sam through this his goddamn mission in life. Not when there's still every chance that today will be the day that Dad, that Yellow Eyes, that Meg or Sam's friend from the crossroads or any one of the hundreds if not thousands of people on their asses decides to put down the crossword, catch the fuck up with the Winchesters, and do their level best to wipe Sam and Dean right off the goddamn map.

So no, Dean's not leaving. He'd never leave, not when Sam was facing that. He'd never bail when it meant Sam would still be in the fight, would have to face it alone. And Sam loves that and hates that about his brother, can't live with and can't live without the sick, sour assurance that no matter how far he's let this go, no matter how far gone or how deep in or how bad off one or both of them ever get, Dean would never, _will never_, just leave him. No matter how much Sam might want him to.

'Cause God knows he's not gonna be the one to walk out.

He thought about it, back upstairs. Sat on the bed, sticky and stunned and beyond embarrassed, beyond ashamed as he looked to their duffels piled side by side by the door and thought about just taking off. Taking his chances with Dad and the demons and all of it, just so Dean didn't have to- wouldn't have to—

Well, so things might be easier. Just with this. Just a little.

But Dean would never let him get far. Not without someone they trusted, _absolutely trusted_, at his back, which these days is pretty much just Dean. If Sam had actually made it as far as leaving a note and taking off in one of Bobby's junkers, though? If he'd done just like his brother was worried he was gonna do when they learned about the hit on Ellen's? Well, it doesn't take knowing Dean as well as Sam does to know his brother'd be in his rearview inside an hour, fishtailing and pissed as hell as he all but ran Sam off the road in his rush to read him the Riot Act for a) being an idiot by b) putting himself in danger and c) making Dean ding his baby up in a chase for no good goddamn reason, all while d) worrying the crap out of him.

It wouldn't matter if Sam went by car, bus, plane, train or mystical goddamn hoodoo. Dean would find him, and then he'd find a way to make sure Sam never, _ever_ slipped off like that again.

It's what Sam'd do, if he were in Dean's place.

Hell, it's what Sam _did_, when Dean tried to slip off after Covington, tried to just go back to not calling and not knowing and not being there all the time, no matter what, like he's been there for Sam all this year, all their lives. Sam needs that, needs it like blood, like body, like breathing, and if Dean does too, would rather burn than go back to the way it was those two awful years, no matter what they learn about Sam?

Well, if he's made it his mission to see Sam through fighting off the powers of fucking hell, Sam's not gonna waste his breath fighting him on it.

And yeah, that should probably register somewhere on Sam's Fucked-Up Meter as a 'Misery' level of unhealthy codependence, but honestly? As messed up as things are at this point? Sam's having a hard time finding anything other than a slow, steady kind of comfort in the knowledge that no matter what he does, no matter what happens to him, no matter what he becomes, and no matter where any of the myriad of sick, twisty paths he's on take him, Dean will be there, in front of him or beside him or even in the rearview, swearing like a trucker and pushing the Impala for all she's worth as he burns rubber to catch up.

And Sam's… coming to terms with that. With what it means for him, for them, in the face of this whole damn Boy King mess. He just hopes to God that if worst comes to worst, if things play out like Yellow Eyes, like Sam's friend at the crossroads, like the deepest, darkest, most pessimistic corners of his own mind insist that they will, that someone - Bobby, Ellen, Dad, _someone_ - will be near enough to pull Dean out. To save him from himself.

To save him from Sam.

Because Sam _can't_ leave, isn't even unselfish enough to try, and no matter how smart it might be, no matter how much safer, how much _better_ Dean's goddamn life would be without a whiny, panicky, anxious, _horny_ human/demon hybrid in the passenger seat painting a giant goddamn target on both their backs, he just- just _won't go_. And Sam doesn't get it, can't see why any sane person wouldn't have cut their losses by now, bid the black-blooded freak a fond farewell and hightailed it for greener and markedly less sulfur-strewn pastures, but he's not exactly going to argue.

Not when, even through all of this, Dean still wants to be the last face he sees at night and the first one he sees in the morning. Not when having Dean here, having him with him, stubbornly, inexplicably, amazingly at his side through thick and thin is the first reason, the last reason, the _only_ reason Sam is still going.

Wherever Sam goes, Dean will follow. For better or goddamn worse.

Sam just needs to get that to apply everywhere EXCEPT the bedroom.

Because if this thing, his weird-bad-awful Dean thing, if it's come to this, come down to him bad-touching his brother is his goddamn sleep, then one of them's got to do something. Since Dean is either the most willfully ignorant person on the planet or playing dumb like a goddamn champ in the hope that all of this Flowers in the Impala crap just goes away, Sam's clearly going to have to be the one to put his foot down. Sam will be the one to look facts in the face and call a spade a goddamn spade and admit that no matter how much he might think he needs Dean there at night, safe and warm and alive and the only thing, the only goddamn thing he can trust in the world, they are both adults (Technically. Legally. Debatably). They are broad, strapping, manly men, and they can sleep in their own goddamn beds without scary dreams.

Or panic attacks.

Or both.

And no matter how much they might be used to doing things one way - one nice, steadying, stress-reducing, _amazing_ way - certain things, certain risky things, certain definitely-weird-for-adult-sibling-things are just gonna have to change.

They're just gonna have to.

Really.

"Give it up, Sammy," Dean gruffs as they skirt Ellen and Bobby, who are already manning the phones and flipping through reference texts in the study.

"What?" Sam starts, fumbling the spatula in his grip and sending eggs splattering across the counter as he worries for one bizarre half-second that Dean's suddenly picked up some nifty psychic powers of his own.

"Spazzing out, for starters." Dean snorts, stabbing sausage patties with a fork as he raises an eyebrow at Sam trying to scoop eggs back on his plate. "Then you can work on not bein' a huge girl about every damn thing."

"Really, Dean?" Sam snaps, letting his plate clatter to the counter and glaring. "Listen, whether you like it or not, we're gonna have to talk about—"

"There biscuits in here, Bobby?" Dean interrupts loudly, shouting over Sam to pitch his voice towards Bobby and Ellen in the study.

"Yeah, right between the fryin' pan and the 'This Ain't a Goddamn Diner, Boy,'" Bobby grumbles, stomping in to pour himself another cup of coffee and slap open the oven to reveal a pan of biscuits, golden brown and warming on the center rack.

"Found 'em," Dean tosses back. He sends a smirk Bobby's way before snagging two straight from the skillet and taking his plate into the study with Ellen.

"Dean!" Sam bites out, moving to follow his brother.

Bobby snags the back of his shirt, and Sam catches himself on instinct, just like when he was ten and trying to sneak out to find Dean tinkering away in the garage without getting in his practice with the twelve gauge first.

"I wanna have any clue what's got you chuckleheads bickerin' now?" Bobby asks. He shoots a glance between where Dean's disappeared into the study and where he still has Sam by the scruff of the neck in the kitchen. Metaphorically, of course. Bobby hasn't been able to literally pull that one off since before he and John's last falling out and Sam's first growth spurt.

"Probably not," Sam admits.

Bobby sighs. He lets go of Sam's shirt and takes a long drag of his coffee.

"Mail came while you two were gettin' your beauty rest," he says. He tosses Sam a cigar-box sized package from the counter as he makes his way into the study. "Got your name on it."

"This is from Caleb," Sam realizes, recognizing the alias listed above the sender's PO Box as he follows Bobby into the study, breakfast totally forgotten. "Why is this from Caleb?"

"Caleb?" Dean drops his fork to his plate with a clatter and snatches the package from Sam's hands. "Why's he sendin' you stuff? Why does he know we're here in the first place?!"

"I don't know, Dean," Sam snipes, making a grab for the box only for Dean to shove him full-force in the chest the second his brother feels the weight of the package. "Dean, what the hell?"

Sam stumbles back into Ellen and squashes down the sudden, irrational fear that his brother's having the world's longest delayed reaction, has finally realized what a fucked-up, awful, badtouching freak Sam is and is lashing out accordingly.

"Stay over there!" his brother commands, eyes hunt-sharp and voice deadly serious as he steadies the box in his hands, feels out the weight with a hard, measuring look in his eye.

"What? Dean—!" Sam starts as Ellen helps steady him.

"I'm serious, Sam," Dean snaps. "We got no way to know whose Kool-Aid he's been drinkin' or if it's really from him at all."

Ellen and Bobby join Samm in looking at Dean like he's suddenly come over nine kinds of crazy.

"And if it is," Dean continues, "you remember how Dad and Caleb got to be such good buddies in the first place? Man don't deal in lollipops and candy canes, Sammy. He's got this thing wired, I—"

"Wanna take a face full of C-4?!" Sam finishes for him. He shoves out of Ellen's grip and starts forward. "Yeah, hell with that!"

But before he can reach Dean, his brother wheels around, rips the box open and flinches, freezing for a second before he, and the entire room, relaxes.

"Happy?" Bobby snarls, slapping his coffee down on the table with a glare. "We're not blown up. Now either of you wanna tell us what the hell that was about?"

"Sam here thinks that it's totally normal that Dad and his friends would try to burn him alive one day then send care packages the next," Dean snipes, punctuating his words with an accusing stab of the package in Sam's direction.

"Your Daddy did _what?!_" Ellen snaps, rounding on Sam.

He watches his brother wince, realize that they never exactly shared that part with her and Bobby, even though Dean's version is wildly sensationalized to say the least.

"They thought they were doing the right thing," Sam mumbles, striding forward to snatch the box from Dean.

His brother leans back and holds the package out of Sam's reach as he glares at him.

"How the hell is locking your ass in a burning building to die the right goddamn thing?" Dean demands, in Sam's face and furious. "How the hell is that okay, huh?"

"It's _not_, even for someone with your daddy's illustrious goddamn history of being paranoid and stupid," Bobby snaps, shouldering his way between them. "You're sayin' this went down, fine, but at _Jim's?_ He was in on it?"

"Roofied my ass and put me on a goddamn bus, probably at Dad's say-so," Dean growls, tearing a fistful of crumpled newspaper from the box and throwing it over Bobby's shoulder to bounce off Sam's chest and onto the floorboards. "Clearly he's at the top of our goddamn Christmas Card list."

"Dean," Sam protests, trying not to pick up the newspaper taunting him from the least-dusty patch of floor available and failing miserably because Ellen _just_ cleaned in here.

"And ya'll just _forgot_ to fuckin' mention any of this?" Bobby demands, dander still very firmly up/ "What? 'Cause between demon fires and Sam being differently-goddamn-abled, your Daddy's sudden rash of crazy just never made it to the goddamn table?"

"What he said," Ellen snarls, glaring for all she's worth between Sam and Dean as she snatches the newspaper from Sam and hurls it in the fireplace. "Boys somethin' like this happens? Your daddy tries to honest-to-god _murder_ you? You goddamn tell someone! Jesus _Christ_, that I even have to _explain_ somethin' like this..."

"Ellen, we're sorry," Sam says.

"What if we had called your daddy to let him know you two were safe?" Ellen demands, rounding on him and drilling a finger into his chest.

"What if he'd shown the hell up here lookin' for you?" Bobby continues from behind her shoulder. "What then, huh? We supposed to just _psychically know_ he's as like to say hello with as bullet as a hearty goddamn handshake?"

"Bobby, we—"

"Were actin' a-goddamn-fool, just like your goddamn daddy raised you to." Bobby fumes, storming over to his battered, beaten desk to rustle papers aggressively. "Sweepin' murder attempts under the goddamn rug. Openin' bombs in my goddamn livin' room. Don't know why I'm goddamn surprised. Anything else you two idjits wanna share while you got the goddamn honesty stick?"

"You're gonna need new sheets upstairs," Dean answers automatically. "Sam did it."

"_Dean_!" Sam hisses with an unmanly and decidedly un-twentysomething-esque squeak.

Bobby rolls his eyes and Ellen does her best to hide a smile because goddamnit, Dean just- just— What is even going through his head here? _'_Oh, I had an incestuous accidental jack-off session in our kinda-sorta-uncle's upstairs bedroom! Better march downstairs and tell him about it right away out loud and with as many people in the room as possible!' What, is Dean gonna make _posters_ next? _'My brother touches my no-no place, ask me how?!'_

Half to have another reason to avoid everyone's eye and half-hoping that there really is a bomb hidden in there, way down deep and near the bottom, Sam snags the box from Dean and shoves his hand in. Inside the package, he finds his cell phone, soot-stained and very definitely worse for the wear, resting right on top of—

Oh…_oh._

His hand closes around cool metal and smooth, shining mother of pearl inside the battered, foil-lined cardboard, wraps his fingers around the familiar grip and tugs it free from the nest of newspapers still halfheartedly filling the box.

It's his gun. His Taurus. The one Jim took from him right before he locked Sam in the panic room. The one that's not so much his as _theirs_, an imperfect, incomplete match to the engraved Colt even now in the back of Dean's jeans, one half of an improvised, uneven whole. Totems and tokens of a life given by John but taken back by their own hands, now undeniably, irrevocably _theirs_, weapons worn and wielded and as different as they are the same. Identical, even.

And each nothing without the other.

"I didn't even-" he murmurs, pulling the gun out and checking the mag on reflex.

"Yeah, we know you didn't," Dean snaps.

He throws himself on the couch and glares, and Sam knows, he just _knows_ that Dean's filing away the fact that he didn't notice his gun, _their_ gun, was missing. He's just gonna add it to the list of things he's silently, stubbornly holding against Sam, his eternal, impeccable, unforgiving tally of ways Sam is stupid and fucked-up and very obviously not worth the trouble he causes.

"Anything else in there we need to know about?"

"My phone," Sam mumbles. He shoves down Dean's tantrum to tuck the phone into his pocket for charging later before digging in the box again.

He's hoping to find a letter, a note, something to explain where Caleb got this. Sam wants to know why he sent it, what this means for them and Dad, for whether or not the entire hunting world is about to descend on them in an angry, gas guzzling, beer drinking, rock-salted fury. He comes up empty handed all the same.

"Awesome," Dean bites out, like the fact that Caleb didn't pack an annotated copy of Dad's game plan and Yellow Eyes' home address is something Sam arranged just to annoy him. "That gives us just about jack shit. Ellen, we still havin' the whole meet-up thing or do Sam and I gotta go to Time Out, first?"

"Big, fat family reunion at noon, assumin' you check your lip enough to survive that long." Ellen sends a measuring look between Sam and Dean. They're very clearly still in the doghouse, but she's at least willing to throw them a bone on this one in the name of the case. "Place's about three hours out. Shouldn't be too bad a drive, we set out soon enough."

"_We_set out?" Sam repeats, right over Dean's surprised "What?"

"Did I stutter?" Ellen asks archly, getting a hand on her hip. "You two're lucky you're comin' at all."

"Ellen, come on," Sam presses.

"You can't be serious," Dean adds.

"And you boys can't really think I'm gonna be fine and dandy dumpin' you right into the thick of the Campbell's with no—"

"It's our _Mom_." Dean grinds out over her.

"And that means you got about a snowball's chance in hell of keepin' anywhere near a level head around these people, especially if they start tellin' you somethin' you don't wanna hear," Ellen tosses back. She continues, gentler this time, "Honey, I understand. Really, I do. But you gotta get that these people are jumpy, paranoid, and they've got a nasty streak a mile wide when it comes to outsiders, which I just barely don't count as and you definitely do, no matter who your momma was. Honestly, havin' you two comin' at all just screams disaster, but unless Bobby got around to puttin' those chains in the basement…"

"Next weekend," Bobby gruffs, hiding a smirk in his coffee.

"I'm just gonna have to content myself with parkin' you two in the car and hopin' to God they can't smell your glarin' Winchesterness from across the street."

"You want us to stay in the _car?!_" Dean nearly explodes, shooting up from the couch.

"Please, Ellen," Sam protests.

He steps in front of Dean, keeping his brother trapped between the couch and the old steamer trunk Bobby uses as a coffee table. He _has __to be there_, has to see first-hand and hear first-hand and do something, _anything_, to start making sense of all of this. If they know how it happened and why it happened and what started it all, _who_ started it all, they might- there might be a chance- even if it's just a small one, of saving—

Well, maybe not saving him, but saving _something_.

"El," Bobby rumbles, setting down his coffee and stepping in from where he's been listening at the desk, apparently coming down on their side, if the wary tone he's using is any indication.

"You pipe right the hell down, Bobby Singerm" Ellen warns, stabbing the air between them with a finger.

Bobby doesn't back down, just cocks an eyebrow and sends a loaded expression her way, one Sam recognizes. He might have screwed things up irrevocably with his brother, but he'd have to be blind not to know a silent conversation when he sees one. Whatever Bobby's saying-but-not-saying to Ellen right now, whatever he's reminding her of without saying a thing, it's working. She huffs out a breath and rolls her eyes with a grudging, irritated grumble.

"Fine. But you boys stay back, you hear? I don't care how bad you think you are, Dean Winchester, you put one toe outta line or so much as _think_ about givin' me lip, I will turn you over my knee so fast it'll make your head spin, you understand? As far as the Campells' are concerned, you're both _deaf mutes_ who do whatever the hell I _sign_, do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, ma'am." Dean nods, hint of a smirk playing at the edge of his mouth for all that Sam knows he's deadly serious.

"Sam, I need to repeat any of that?" Ellen tosses in his direction. For all the crap that's going on, Sam can't help but feel just a tiny frisson of smug, little-brotherly pride at not having to be told to mind his manners on this one.

"No, ma'am," he answers, just barely stopping himself from sending a snotty smirk in Dean's direction.

"Good." Ellen nods, all business. "You boys get yourselves ready, then. We're leaving as soon as Bobby get's me somethin' that's workin' to go in."

"Come again?" Bobby pipes up, clearly surprised that he'll be donating a vehicle to this venture.

"Ellen, we got room—" Dean breaks in, and Sam is so _not_ surprised that Dean's not a fan of Ellen getting her own car on this one.

After all, with a three hour drive ahead of them and no Ellen in the backseat behind them, how's Dean gonna get away from talking about Sam molesting him in his damn sleep short of jumping out the damn window and hitchhiking to the meet? The only other option to escape would be riding with Ellen and letting Sam drive the Impala, and he knows that'll happen just short of _never_.

If there's one thing Dean hates more than introspection, it's someone with a history of stalling manuals behind the wheel of his baby.

"Boys, I love the hell out of you, I really do," Ellen breaks in, "but there is no way in this world or the next I am sitting in the backseat of that midlife crisis on wheels watching you stew. If you're comin', you're followin' my lead, and you're followin' my car. I don't care if that means you're spendin' the next eight hours on a little red tricycle with streamers on the handles, Bobby Singer, you better start handin' me the keys to somethin' and you better start doin' it quick."

"Yes, ma'am." Bobby grins, looking between Sam and Dean and tossing Ellen the keys to the Chevelle with a smirk. "Ya'll have fun."

"All of you _suck__,"_ Dean grumbles, stomping upstairs. Presumably for the bags, but maybe just to write in his journal about how mean everyone is for trying to get him to think about stuff.

For all that Sam knows this is gonna suck for them both, he can't feel like he won this one.


	70. Chapter 70

We have returned! So glad to be back. Life's still super busy, so we're going to have to make the posting schedule every other week instead of weekly. But look forward to new developments in the Campbell-Winchesters drama and new heights of brotouching in the future!

* * *

><p>Okay, so maybe Sammy won that one, Dean thinks as he flings bags into the trunk of the Impala and slams her shut, hefting Sam's meds and laptop bag and tossing them into the passenger's seat before stomping his way around to the driver's side.<p>

Doesn't mean he has to be so damn smug about it.

And okay, so maybe 'smug' on Sammy right now might look to the untrained observer a hell of a lot like 'breathing' and 'existing,' but Dean knows his brother. Somewhere in there, beneath the floppy hair and soulful goddamn puppy eyes, the little punk is smug as hell about getting his way on the whole 'Solo Feelings Car Ride' thing.

Dean just _knows_.

Just like he knows that Sammy's waiting for a chance to have the whole girly, guilty, feely talk thing about his sticky little wakeup call this morning. Just like he knows Sam is gonna drag this out and analyze the hell out of it, just like Dean wanted him to do yesterday after the whole shower thing. Of course, now that talking about shit is the exact last thing that Dean wants to goddamn do, Sammy comes over all Chatty fucking Kathy_. Brothers_.

Which they are. Which, yeah. Okay. Maybe there might, possibly, be things there that might not necessarily—

Why the hell do they have to analyze the fuck out of this _now?_ Why not yesterday, when things were okay? Maybe a little… but still _mostly_ not-at-all and- and somehow, _somehow_ this is all goddamn Sam's fault for fucking falling asleep yesterday and not telling Dean what to think about this whole mess before it got way, _way_ out of hand.

By getting in hand.

Goddammit, that came out wrong.

Fuck, so did that.

Man, this is gonna suck.

Sucking...

Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit.

And Sam's not fucking helping, folding himself in to the passenger seat and emoting as hard as he can as Styx tries and fails to keep up the con that everything is totally and completely fucking normal and not at all about to break out into some big, awkward, detailed analysis of all that- that—

_hotsweatytinglingawesome_

—stuff.

Because he knows Sammy's "We're Gonna Goddamn Talk About This, Deeean" face. Short of an attack by demons or hunters or demon-possessed hunters (God, their lives are _weird_), they're fucking talking about this.

Unless one or both of them suddenly come over in mortal fucking peril, gets possessed or shot or _both_, they're talking about this which—

Jesus fuck, Dean might just wanna take his chances with the bullet.

"Dean," Sam starts as they pull out of Bobby's drive.

"Shut up and do your breathing exercises. We gotta get a move on, we wanna make the meet," Dean snaps, shamelessly stalling for time as he stuffs a random tape in the deck and follows Ellen out onto the highway.

Yeah, they're following her. Because apparently _someone_ - some bossy, controlling formerly-bar-owning someone - thought that if they knew where the meet was, they'd push their embarrassingly faster and just ridiculously more awesome ride to get them there first and snake the intel.

Which, okay, Dean totally would, but _still_. Following Ellen goddamn Harvelle at a snail's pace down the highway like he's fifteen and can't read a goddamn map? Being stuck behind the wheel without even figuring out where they're headed to distract him? Watching the same busted rear-end of the same beaten-down car with the same bent license plate for who the hell knows how long as Ellen proceeds down the highway at a pace anyone else would probably be okay with but has Dean's lead foot and his baby's need for speed itching like hell to open her up? To get there and get this infodump the fuck underway before Sammy unleashes the examine-our-feelings talk for the goddamn record books?

Yeah, it _sucks._

"I know we gotta make the meet," Sam grumbles in a wounded tone.

He fishes a protein bar from the bag at his feet to fiddle with as he takes a deep breath and holds it.

"You know we're gonna—" he starts again before his next breath, only for Dean to crank the volume as _All Quiet on the Western Front_ finally crackles to life on the tape deck, Paul's emo bitching drowning out whatever Sam thinks he was gonna say to complicate things next.

"Too loud," Dean shouts over the prose as he shifts. "Can't hear you."

"You hate this book," Sam huffs before his next breath, reaching to eject the tape before Dean knocks his hand away.

"Leave it," he mutters, trying to ignore the sudden, sharp heat of Sam's hand against his own, the lingering burn of skin against skin, pulse against pulse and a hundred things he shouldn't think about.

He hopes to hell that listing all the shit that annoys him about Remarque's depressing-ass war narrative will drown out those thoughts, the ball-shriveling awfulness of a whole generation dead for a few, useless inches of dirt distracting him from Sam, here and heartbeats away again and about to bring it up, about to say it out loud and he- they- _Dean_—

"Better him whining than you," he grumbles as he follows Ellen's onto the Interstate.

He shoves it away, locks it down and listens, just _listens_, to the voices pounding out over the tape deck, the scratchy, hoarse hum of horror and hatred and fighting, not for a cause or a country but just because you have to, 'cause you got no other option but to go over the top again and again and again, and all you have at the end of the day is tomorrow's fight.

Tomorrow's fight and the guy in the trench next to you.

Except that's not how this story ends. Dean knows that much. Complained his way through twelve chapters of this mustard-gassed, lost generation crap when Sam picked it up outside of Wichita, insisted that it would be anything other than a godawful slog through mind-numbing, bone-crunching horror that resembles way too much some of the more awful days of their quite-frankly-horrifying-enough-thank-you lives.

Dean didn't need seven hours of first person narration from some kid whose balls haven't even dropped to tell him something he already knows.

He knows how this story ends. He's always known how it was gonna end.

Life sucks, then you die.

You get your kicks, take your licks, and if you're lucky enough, you're not Paul. You manage to do some good on your way out, manage to find a fight for something a little more real, a little more immediate than Kaiser and country, and if you're very, _very_ lucky, you go with someone you care about beside you.

You go first, and you go fast.

Well, Dean thinks, as Paul's voice drops out in favor of the first appearance by the book's Narrator, at least Paulie got one of those two in.

Not great, but better than Dean's probably gonna manage if things keep going like they're going.

'Cause, god, Sammy's not gonna let this go.

He's gonna dig it up and drag it ou,t and there's just no way that conversation's not gonna end awkward or awful or both, because Dean?

Dean's got a pretty good idea of the questions rocketing around in Sammy's too-big thinking brain over there, questions that start with things like 'How do you feel…?' and 'What are you thinking about…?' And to be completely honest? One hundred percent zero bullshit?

Dean doesn't have a damn clue.

This morning? It felt good. It felt pretty damn good, and as far as ways to start the damn day go, a first class ticket to Happy Land is a hell of a lot better than a Mickey Finn and getting put on a damn Greyhound while his baby brother burns alive, so you know what? That's what Dean thinks about goddamn that.

And yeah, it's not the answer Sam's gonna want to hear, but that's because the only answer Sam wants to hear is that he's a monster and Dean hates him, which, sorry Sammy, is just never gonna be true.

Jesus Christ, you'd think they strangled kittens while cheating on their goddamn math homework and taking the name of the lord in vain the way Sam's going on about this instead of, you know, had some really awesome—

_sex_

No. No, not that. They just happen to do stuff in the same place in the same time, and there were hands and it, admittedly, felt _awesome,_ but it wasn't- they didn't— Sam was _asleep_ for Chrissake! It's not like there was eye contact and decision making and anything other than completely incidental, circumstantial, totally explain-away-able—

God, why does this have to be a big goddamn deal? It happened! It felt good! Get over it!

Mother of God, isn't Sam supposed to be on the whole feelin'-good-with-other-dudes train? Shouldn't this stuff be old hat to him by now? Shouldn't he _not_ need his big brother to explain to him that sometimes a dude and another dude—

This is not a Big Goddamn Deal.

Dean refuses to let Sam make it into one.


	71. Chapter 71

Thanks for reading, everyone! We so enjoyed the comments on the last chapter. Thanks for welcoming us back!

* * *

><p>Of course, right around he decides that, Sam finishes his breathing exercises and turns down the volume on the tape deck, the last vestiges of narration fading to the background, swallowed up by the purr of the Impala and the whirling, whipping rush of wind outside the windows.<p>

"Dean," he starts, but Dean doesn't let him get that far.

"Do your—"

"I'm finished with my goddamn breathing exercises!" Sam snaps. Apparently, he's not in a fucking around mood which, okay, even Sammy has his limits and it _has_ been a hell of a morning. "Now are you gonna listen to what I have to say or not?"

"I got a choice?" Dean grumbles, skimming his fingers over the wheel as he scans the horizon, looks anywhere but Sammy in the passenger seat.

He'll give it to Sammy. Well fucking played on this one. They're far enough away that he can't just dump him on the side of the road, let him walk back to Bobby's and contemplate the virtue of stuffing thorny emotional crap like this in a box and never ever opening it. And with the last truck stop they passed still in their rearview, there's no chance in hell Dean'd just pull over for a fill up and leave Sam to sort his shit out for a couple hours, not with anyone and everyone a potential possess-ee, not with their already-short list of allies turning on them like the goddamn seasons.

So yeah, well-fucking-played Sammy.

"No." Sam snorts, ejecting the tape and tossing it in their shoebox, and at least he doesn't sound fucking happy about this either. At least he sounds like he's not looking forward to this conversation every bit as much as Dean is, though that does beg the question of why they have to talk it out at all.

Seriously. They're adults. Dean doesn't want to talk about it. Sam doesn't want to talk about it. They're well within their rights as grown, marginally emotionally-constipated men to not fucking talk about it.

"I'm sorry," Sam starts, and of course that's how he starts. Of course he comes out of the gate all kicked puppy and apologizing, because this is obviously all his damn fault, _obviously_.

The kid was _asleep_ for chrissakes.

"Sam," Dean sighs, shaking his head at the metric shit-ton of godawful opening this fucking can of worms is gonna bring.

"I _am_, Dean," Sam cuts him off, "I-I—"

"If you say 'violated,'" Dean snaps, glaring as he defends his manly goddamn honor, "I will pull this car over right now, I swear to god."

"Dean!"

"It's not a big deal, Sam!" Dean insists, trying like hell to head all this shit off at the pass. "It—"

"It _is_ a big fucking deal, Dean!" Sam bursts out, shooting that fucking horse in the face. "I'm badtouching you in your sleep! How is that not a big deal? How is that anything other than _wrong_ and _fucked up_ and an excellent reason to never, _ever_—"

"So what, you get one awkward hard on and I gotta sleep on the couch?" Dean demands, seeing where Sammy was going with that one and- and just- just _no_. "_Seriously?_"

"It was not _one awkward hard-on_, Dean!" Sam practically shouts. "I know you're the king of selective goddamn memory but come on! Manning?! Yesterday?! And now this morning!"

"So you need to get laid," Dean scoffs, but apparently Sam isn't letting him get away with that this time.

"I tried that!" Sam snipes, cutting him off viciously. "But _someone_-"

"So you're saying this is my fault?" he demands, voice sharp as he remembers that asshole from Little Rock, remembers very goddamn nearly committing a fucking hate crime in an Arkansas motel room after he tore the town apart looking for his baby brother and then- then—

"NO," Sam shouts, jerking Dean back to here, to now. "It's _mine!_ It's mine for being horrible and fucked up and- and—"

"_Sam_," Dean breaks in, cutting off Sam's stream of recriminating crap that is _completely untrue__, _no matter what happened this morning.

"And I don't care how much you want to hand wave this, Dean!" Sam powers over him. "I don't care how much you want to rewrite history and sweep it under the goddamn rug, I- I fucking DID violate you."

He shakes his head, angry and hunched in with self-loathing, swallowing hard as his breathing races hard, quick, stressed in's and out's as he forces the words out.

"And you can say it's _normal__ all you want,_but I know it's _not_."

Dean scoffs. "Yeah, because our lives—"

"Have never included incestuous handjobs up until now!"

Wow, Sammy. Way to drop the I-bomb.

"So given that, I don't wanna hear about _puberty_ or _nocturnal emissions_ or all this being totally natural and not at all fucked up, because this?" Sam rants, and Dean doesn't need the hasty half-glance he shoots at his belt to know exactly what his little brother's talking about. "Rounding the bases in our goddamn sleep? It is not fucking _natural_. I don't know if it's this case or the circumstances or my- my—"

And Dean can't quite figure out where Sammy's going with that one, not until his brother drags one hand over the transfusion scar on his arm, digs a nail half-unconsciously into the shaking, silvery line.

Oh, _hell_ no.

"Are you seriously playing the Demon Blood card?" Dean demands. "_Seriously?_ Jesus Christ, I thought we'd already firmly fucking established this: You are not the goddamn Bad Seed and I am not your goddamn Zombie Bitch. Mother _FUCK_, every goddamn thing-"

Dean shakes his head, reals at the- the fucking lengths Sam will go to take the blame for anything that could even possibly be a little bit linked with what happened to him as a baby.

"The weather your fault too, Sam?" he demands. "Gonna take the blame for the fucking Holocaust while you're at it?"

"We don't know-" Sam argues, and it's like the words are being dragged out of him, the self-loathing coming off his little brother in waves and he didn't _do_ this, doesn't _deserve_ this.

Jesus Christ, the kid was fucking _asleep._

"That you didn't get a Satan Hard On and get swallowed by uncontrollable demonic lust?" Dean demands from the driver's seat, sharp, sarcastic ridicule in his voice. His fingers grip the wheel so hard the leather creaks, and he itches, _burns_, to hit the gas hard, to run some of this off with high-octane fuel and hairpins turns, fast and reckless and fucking- fucking— "_Seriously_, Sam?"

"Dean, stop—"

Dean snorts sharply.

"What, making that sound every bit as ridiculous as it goddamn is? Yeah, not gonna happen. And by the way," he adds, a grin sneaking out through the anger and frustration, ready and real, for all it has razor sharp edges, "your Antichrist side is jonesin' for some virgin lovin'? It's barkin' up the wrong—"

"Stop making this into a joke, Dean!" Sam snaps, putting down Dean's grin with one shot. "This isn't me _overreactin_g or being _hysterical_ or a _girl!_ You were asleep, and I _jacked you off!"_

"Sam, that is not even—" he argues, because this isn't even close to Sam's fault. His little brother was out, hard, for the whole damn thing. Dean knows.

"That is _literally_ what happened, Dean!" Sam explodes. "You were asleep—"

"_We_ were asleep!" Dean breaks in, corrects, swallows down the way the words come out sour, leave a spoiled, twisted taste in his mouth. "'S not like you woke up and thought, 'Hey, that Dean is a hot piece of ass. He's had a rough time lately, better give him a little 'Hi, How Ya Doin' to get the day started!'"

He didn't. Sam didn't. He'd never do somethin' like that. The kid's just goin' through a rough time. Hey, if his brain needs a break, a little time out from gut-wrenching demon visions and bein' first round draft pick for the hell crowd, and gives him a good goddamn dream one night to balance out over a year of nothing but fucking nightmares, who is Dean to judge?

You gotta get out sometime, and Sammy- God, he needed it.

After Jim and Dad and Mom and— And so what if the kid has a good goddamn dream? Gets that first little break from demons and destinies and fucking grabs it, takes the chance and takes the reins and rides hell for leather?

Not like Dean stopped him.

"Dean, you—"

"Were asleep. Just like you!" he snaps, harder than he should have as he shoves down the memory of Sam, sleep-slow and dream clumsy, pressing tighter into him under the covers, winding his fingers in the fabric of Dean shirt, _lower_, with a long, low hum against Dean's pulse, his mouth hot and open, hips moving in a slow, steady grind that has Dean's Downstairs Brain on board before his Upstairs Brain could even get it's fucking eyes open because- because—

Because the pie graph of People Who Were Asleep the Whole Time This Morning and Dean Winchester would be two circles and not remotely delicious to swallow as pie.

"We can't control shit like this," Dean bites out, focusing on the horizon, the highway, the wheel locked tight beneath his fingers instead of warm skin and hot breaths, hell-with-it and here-goes and a hundred things he could have done, should have done.

"The fuck we can't!" Sam fires back, razor sharp and steel steady for all that he's fraying and frustrated. "You wanna make a joke out of this? Fine. You wanna laugh it off? Go ahead."

And Dean is not laughing. He is so, so not laughing, but that doesn't seem to have registered for Sam, who's still going strong.

"But I am not letting you play this off as just another thing that's out of our hands because it's fucking _not_, Dean!" Sam rails, glaring at him from the passenger seat. "I might not be able to control what Mom did or Yellow Eyes or Dad or my goddamn visions or blood or big _fucking_ destiny, but I can control this!"

And Dean is a horrible person. He is a horrible, horrible person because he… this…

It wasn't something Sam did. It _wasn't._

"I can control this," Sam repeats, eyes hard and sharp and furiously determined. "I _can_. And I'm not doing this to you again, Dean!

"This is _fucked up_ and _twisted__,_and one of the few twisted, fucked up things in our goddamn world that I can control, that I can _stop_," he continues, fuming and faultless and every inch Dean's brother. "So you can shout 'It's natural' to the goddamn rooftops, Dean. You can hand wave this until your goddamn arms fall off, but I _will not_ let any more of my fucked up bleed into you, Dean. I just- just _won't.__"_

Great. Just fucking- fucking _great._

Because of course. Of course, Sam ignores good goddamn advice and just goes ahead and ties everything back to his goddamn blood, handily and conveniently making this all Sam's fault. Of course he can't see through his own "I'm the Goddamn Devil" complex to cast the blame right where it fucking belongs, which is right at Dean's guilt-covered goddamn doorstep.

Because Sam didn't do this and it isn't his fault, and they didn't so much trip and fall into a pile of gay incest as make the horrible mistake of not seeing it coming and assuming that, if it did come, Dean wouldn't just let it happen if he was sleepy and it looked like it would provide a sufficiently awesome orgasm with little to no effort on his part.

Big mistake, there. Big, _big_ mistake.

But he's trapped, totally and completely, because now there's no way he can say, "Sorry, Sam, forgot to tell you. I was totally awake through, like, two thirds of that, saw this shit happening, and just kinda let it, so it wasn't your fault for being gay and repressed. It was mine."

Except the gay part.

Oh, who is he kidding at this point? He got a Howard Johnson from a dude and came so hard he'd have passed out if Sam, the afterglow ruining _girl_, hadn't been having a total fucking freak-out next to him. So you know what? Maybe he should reconsider his assumed alignment vis-a-vis the Rainbow Flag. It's not like there haven't been a couple nights in the past, ducks in dives with a few too ladies and a few too many shots that ended up in threeways that weren't so much three as two and a very drunken half, and you know, Dean will try anything once. But this morning?

Jesus Christ, that was nothing, nothing and _everything_, compared to the once that he tried.

That was- _god_, and he can't forget yesterday and today, and it's not new. It's _not_. He'd be more of a liar than he already is if he said any of this was goddamn _new_, because it goes back, _way_ back, back to yesterday and back to last week, last month, to that last night in Palo Alto, seeing the face of fucking god on a borrowed air mattress as a girl who was going to die in a few hours did the work, screamed as she came apart so he didn't have to.

This is not goddamn new.

And it is not goddamn good.

And the thing is, consciously or not, he's been trying to shelf this, turning a blind eye because there were about a hundred other places he needed to goddamn look. Because having Sam close has meant having Sam safe. Because the only boundaries they've have the time or the space or the goddamn will to respect this past year have been made of salt and spray paint. Because it's all lead back to the one simple, beautiful, wrong idea that if you're safe and he's safe, if you're safe and here together, then there can't possibly be anything wrong.

There can't possibly be anything to worry about.

Talk about your flawed fucking theories.

And yeah, maybe someone else'dve seen this coming, seen it on the horizon and nipped it in the goddamn bud and saved them a world of goddamn trouble but Dean- Dean, he's- he's had other shit to worry about, okay? He's had a shit ton of other shit to worry about, from Sam to Dad to Mom to Yellow Eyes to Mom again to Sam again, and if at the end of the day, he'd rather hold on to the one good goddamn thing he's got in this world, the one good goddamn thing he knows is worth all the work, all the worry, then, you know, who could fucking blame him? Who wouldn't look the other way when the lines between close and closer started to blur, to blend, crossed and recrossed so often they're not so much lines anymore as shadows of things that could have been.

Should have been.

Would have been, if Dean weren't the king of cranking it up and driving away, leaving all the doubts and questions on the floor with the wet towels and orphaned socks at checkout and making for the state line at daybreak, always on the road or on the next case, on Dad's tail or Yellow Eyes', taking on Deals and demons and Mom and memories and the next hurdle, the next hit...

But despite all that, despite the myriad of shit heaped on their doorstep, this's gettin' pretty hard to ignore.

It's been two days in a row. Two days of too much and too close and too many near-misses, almost too much to explain away.

This is quickly forcing its way to the top of their goddamn to-do list and—

And he needs to not use that phrase.

Oh, god, he is going straight to hell.

He's going straight to hell, because now Dean's stuck between a blissfully ignorant rock and Let Sam Believe Something Else Is Fucking Wrong With Him hard place. After keeping all those secrets, after having Sam call him on it, after asking Sam if there's anything he's not telling him last night…

God, this is gonna be the demon blood thing all over again, and Sammy's right, he's _so right_, because Dean's _still_ not sorry about keeping that a secret. He's still not sorry about it.

If it comes between hurting Sam and facing whatever else this is, what's he gonna do?

He's gonna not hurt Sam anyway he can.

And Sammy'd say he's just setting them up for more hurt down the line. He'd say Dean never learns, that this is only gonna make things worse in the end, and maybe he'd be right about that last part, but Dean learns. He _does._

He knows he's only fucking them more by keeping this quiet, but if it comes between hurting Sam now and hurting Sam later, he's gonna pick later every goddamn time.

Laters are pretty few and far between with them, and if now's the only time they got, hell if he's gonna fuck it up even more by opening his big goddamn mouth.

Sam's already decided this is his fault.

He's decided this is his fault and that the only way to fix it is to put a little goddamn space between them, and you know what? Given Dean's goddamn decision making skills regarding personal space and Sam in the past couple days, maybe that's for the best. If he follows Sam's lead on this, lets time and the goddamn case bury it, maybe he can figure out for his goddamn self why the fuck it happened. Why the fuck he _let_ it happen.

And even in his own goddamn head, he's a liar.

He did this because it felt good, felt better than anything he's had in a long-ass time, and it felt that goddamn good for a reason. And if that's as not-a-big-deal as he's been saying, he wouldn't still be thinkin' about it.

…So why's he still thinkin' about it?


	72. Chapter 72

The storage container Caleb keeps just outside of Lincoln is sweltering in the summer heat. Inside, the air is dry and oppressively thick, a heavy weight that sits on John's chest and makes every breath he's able to wring out of his lungs come labored and shallow. He paces across the dusty floor, trying to think past the miserable heat.

Not that he's complainin' about the digs, necessarily. After all, this is far from the first time he's bunked down on a bare, lumpy mattress or used a box of ammo as a table while he chokes down MREs, pouring sweat and fantasizing about the distant luxuries of central air and ice-cold beer. Hell, it's practically nostalgic, and more importantly, he couldn't ask for a better base of operations to research the fire at the Harvelle's bar.

It's just that he's so damn tired of feeling trapped.

He wants to be out there, flashing a badge and interviewing witnesses and searching through the scene. He needs to be doing something, not waiting for Caleb to handle it all and report back because John can't risk running into the other dozen hunters sticking their noses into this case. Sure, John's a fair hand at research, always has been, but waiting around like this, relying on another hunter to get his intel for him, makes him restless, his trigger finger just itching for some action. It makes him feel cornered and helpless, and honestly, he gets why Sammy always complained about getting left behind at the library while he and Dean...

...God, Sam and Dean.

And that right there's the other reason John hates this whole set-up. He's poured over the evidence a dozen times, he's run out of papers and maps to mark up and tape to the plain, tin walls, and now his brain's just running in circles. Hell, John doesn't exactly relish being alone with himself under the best of circumstances. Not sober, anyway, and Caleb sure knows it, 'cause it definitely looks like the man took time to clear out all the strong stuff out of this place before he handed John the key.

It was a smart move, John has to admit, because right now? After Blue Earth? John could really use a goddamn drink.

It's probably the only smart thing Caleb's done lately, 'cause hopping into John's truck before he burned rubber towards Nebraska? Still hanging around once word came down the line that Ellen and her little girl were okay? Volunteering to play field agent so John could keep his head down? That's all pretty damn stupid.

Of course, John's the one letting him do it, so he's no Einstein, either.

They both know that the longer he spends with Caleb, the longer he lets the man help him or uses resources like the storage locker he's currently squatting in, the more inevitable it is that sooner or later Caleb will end up like Jim. Like Ellen. Shifting through ashes and trying to put the ruined pieces of his life back together, or worse, caught up in the flames himself. Because that's what happens to people who help John. That's what happens to everyone he touches, and it doesn't matter if they're seasoned hunters or innocent civilians, doesn't matter if they're on holy ground or in a goddamn hunter's bar. They're never safe. Not if John's been there. He's the accelerant. Yellow Eyes is just lighting the match.

And if that's what the bastard is trying to drive home with all this, well then, message fucking received.

That is, if it is a message.

Thing is, John's been going over and over it since he got here. What would Yellow Eyes gain by torching the Roadhouse? If it was a warning, why not do it right after John rolled through town? Hell, if it was revenge, why not torch the place as soon as he wrecked Yellow Eyes' plans in Colorado? Why wait? There's no way this fire and the fire at Jim's church aren't connected, but the Calvary fire was part of a coordinated attack. They weren't there for John. They were after that baby, and they were in and out with deadly, ruthless efficiency. So what were they after here?

What is he missing?

His phone buzzes on the bed, and John snatches it up, grateful for the distraction. He fully expects to see Caleb's number flashing on the caller ID, but it's not him at all. It's Ellen Harvelle. Speak of the devil.

John's stomach sinks like a stone. He sucks in a labored breath and lets it out through his teeth, then flips the phone open before he can second guess himself.

"Yeah?"

"John Winchester," Ellen's voice blares through the phone, just as proud and furious and ready to rake him over the coals as she ever was. "What the hell did you do?"

In spite of everything, that gets a dry chuckle out of John.

"You're gonna have to be more specific, El," he tells her, picking at the corner of a map of Lincoln with a dirty fingernail.

Ellen makes an angry sound. John can hear her smack something and then sound of her blinker clicking away. Is she leaving Sioux Falls this soon? Or did she just decide to read John the Riot Act on her way to the damn grocery store? John's not Singer's biggest fan by a long shot, but he actually hopes it's the latter. If anyone's equipped to keep the Harvelles protected from Yellow Eyes and his army of black-eyed bastards, it's Bobby goddamn Singer.

"Okay then, let me be specific," Ellen growls. "Did you try to murder one of your sons?"

John stands up straighter.

"You heard from Sam and Dean?" he asks. "Are they alright? Where are they?"

"Don't change the subject, John," Ellen orders in a low voice. "Now, you wanna explain to me why I've got Dean tellin' me that you locked his brother in a burning goddamn building?"

John swallows hard against the memory of his son, soot-covered and gasping for air, just seconds away from burning up like Mary, from dying a horrible, agonizing death while John stood outside and fucking watched, and really, what the hell's the point of sugar coating it now?

"That's because I did."

There's a long, heavy pause, and John half expects Ellen to hang up on him, write him off like she should've done all those years ago when John left her with the keys to Bill's RV, drove off, and never looked back. He wouldn't blame her.

"Dammit, John," Ellen breathes instead. "Why the hell would you do that?"

John could try to explain it. He could tell her that it all happened so goddamn fast, say he made a snap judgement, that he never meant for Sam to get hurt, he just didn't think- But even in his head, it just sounds like a whole bunch of excuses. He remembers Dean's steely glare, Sam's wounded, wide-eyed gaze, the flames reflecting back at him off of the Impala's tail-lights, and he thinks that, really, it doesn't matter why he did it.

He did it. It's too late to take that back now.

"I made a mistake," he says simply. "It won't happen again."

"Well, that's just great," Ellen bites out. "And how 'bout your little hunting buddies? You still got them still comin' after your own damn sons or can I start sleeping at night again?"

"I called that off days ago," John sighs. "Nobody's after 'em. Next time you talk to the boys, you tell them that."

"Or you could tell them yourself," Ellen snaps.

John laughs bitterly.

"You really think they wanna hear from me right now?"

_Or ever?_ a voice whispers in the back of his mind. John doesn't bother trying to shut it up. It's the truth.

"I don't—" Ellen breaks off, and John can hear the distant sound of her engine roaring as she punches the gas. "Help me out here, John, 'cause I'm really tryin' to understand what's goin' on in that bundle of crazy you call a brain. I got you calling hits out on one of your own, your boys runnin' hither and yon, thinking you've got Caleb mailing them goddamn pipe bombs. Beats all I've ever seen."

John furrows his brow. He peels the tape off the corners of a newspaper article on the Roadhouse fire and rolls it between his thumb and forefinger.

"Well?" Ellen prompts. "What the hell've you got to say for yourself?"

John sighs and sits down heavily on the camp bed against the tin siding of the locker. The rusting joints of the cot give a high, creaky whine.

"I don't got a goddamn thing."

Ellen lets out a sigh of her own.

"I gotta be honest, John, you're suckin' the fun out of this for me," she grumbles. "It ain't no damn fun kicking you if you just lie down and take it. Now, let me guess: You're layin' low somewhere, feeling sorry for yourself and drinking whatever rotgut you can get your hands on, am I right?"

"I wish," John grumbles. "There's not a drop of goddamn booze in this place."

"I find that hard to believe."

"There's not a drop of _good_ booze in this place," John amends. "Caleb took all the hard stuff. All I got's cheap beer and watered down whiskey."

"Aw, poor baby," Ellen simpers sarcastically. "I'd offer you a shot, but someone done burnt my bar down."

"Shut up, Ellen," John says, feeling a smile tug at the corner of his lips.

He clears his throat.

"So, the boys..." he starts. "How'd they look, last time you saw 'em?"

"They're all right," Ellen says grudgingly. "Singed at the edges and jumpy as all hell, but they'll live."

John allows himself a moment of dizzying relief, before he has to move onto the next part, the next step in this vague thing that's going have to pass for a plan. Finding the Colt.

"So I'm gonna take a wild guess and say they're at Singer's."

It makes sense. After all, Dean's smart. He'd know to stay well clear of hunters after what went down in Blue Earth. The only exception would be... Well, it'd be Bobby. It's the first place John would've checked if the fire at the Roadhouse hadn't blindsided him. Looks like his gut was right.

"Come 'n' gone, smartass," Ellen drawls, "and if you're thinking of showing up asking about 'em, you'd better think again. 'Cause let me me tell you now, Bobby ain't happy, and he's got a bullet with your name on it."

For a spilt second of blistering immaturity, John thinks, _"I could take Bobby Singer."_

He shakes his head, banishing that less-than-helpful train of thought. Okay. So, either Ellen's lying and his boys are camping in Sioux Falls, or she's telling the truth and they're within a day or so of the Singer homestead. Either way, it gives him a lead, which is a good sight better than he was doing before Ellen's call. At least he's got somewhere to start once he finishes up here.

Speaking of which...

"Ellen, while I've got you, mind if I ask you some questions about that fire at your place?"

She lets out a wry, huffy laugh.

"Oh, is that what you're doing?" she asks ruefully. "You working my case, John?"

"It was my case first, El," John says quietly. His case and his fault, too.

"It was my _home_," Ellen says in a tight voice. "My family. Dammit, John, you shoulda been the one calling _me_."

It's true, but John was never going to do that, and they both know it. She was right before. John's nothing but a goddamn coward when it comes to facing the things he's done. He'd rather hide in the hole any day.

"There anything specific you wanna know?" Ellen asks grudgingly, clearly taking his silence for the deflection is is.

"Yeah," John confirms. "They take anything?"

"Not that I could tell after the fact," Ellen answers. "Honestly, I didn't see much at the time. I smelled the smoke and just got outta there as quick as possible, started bangin' on that piece of shit RV Josie was sleepin' in. All I could think of was making sure she was safe."

John feels a sharp thrill of guilt, thinks again of the Calvary church fire and Sam, and swallows thickly.

"I didn't even think about Ash until it was too late," Ellen finishes guiltily.

Right, her tenant. There's another thing about all this that doesn't make sense. John turns and tugs a piece of paper down off his wall.

"It wouldn't have mattered," he tells Ellen. "I got the preliminary autopsy here. His throat was cut. Looks like he either surprised the bastards who lit the place up or..."

"Or he was the target," Ellen finishes.

"There any reason demons might've been after him?" John asks.

There's a long, significant pause on the other end of the line.

"El?"

"He was workin' on something for your boys," Ellen says. "Doing some kind of research."

Looking for omens, John puts together. So that's where they got their intel on Tennessee. They were getting help from the Roadhouse after all. John just pointed the finger at the wrong person.

"You think there's a chance he stumbled onto something this demon wouldn't have wanted us knowing?"

Ellen sighs.

"I wouldn't know. He didn't say, and your boys aren't exactly the trustin' type. Wonder where they got that from."

"Well, see if you can find out if you get the chance," John says. "It's a long shot, but they might tell you, you ask the right way."

"I can try," Ellen agrees, sounding doubtful.

John can't say he blames her. She's right. He raised those boys to keep their mouths shut and never trust anyone not named Winchester. That training's not gonna be going out the window any time soon. But Ash's research, like John's, is nothing but a pile of kindling now. Finding out what Sam and Dean know - and hoping like hell it's something good - is the only option he's got.

"John..." Ellen says hesitantly. "There's something else."

"What's that?" John asks, frowning.

"You ever heard of a family of hunters named Campbell?"

John racks his memory, trying to put that name to anybody he's worked with over the years.

"Can't say I have. Why?"

"Well..." Ellen says slowly. "Honestly, I don't know that it's my place. You know what, let me- Let me check some things out. Ask the boys just what they mighta heard from Ash last and get back to you."

John narrows his eyes, but he decided against pressing her. There's no bullying intel out of Ellen Harvelle. Instead, he makes a mental note to ask Caleb if he knows anything about the Campbells when he gets back. Maybe it's nothing, but he might as well cover all the bases.

"Alright, give me a call if you find out anything new."

"You're gonna pick up my calls three times in a row?" Ellen asks. "John, you're spoilin' me."

John huffs out a short laugh.

"Yeah, well, it's this new thing I've been trying," he says. "We'll see how long it takes to bite me in the ass."

Ellen snorts.

"Later, John," she says before hanging up.

He tucks his phone into his jeans, feeling a hell of a lot better now than he did ten minutes ago. He's got a lead on the gun. He's got a glimmer of hope at getting to the bottom of this newest fire. He's got an ally in Ellen, too, for all that he doesn't deserve it and for all it may be putting her right back in the crosshairs.

Most importantly, he's got confirmation that the boys are okay, at least for now.

It probably makes him a horrible person, but John's glad to hear his sons aren't hunkering down at Bobby's or laying all their cards on the table for Ellen or jumping to open packages from Caleb. It means they're being smart, being wary, guarding themselves with other hunters just like John taught them to. Just like they need to, now more than ever.

It means they're not doing anything stupid.


	73. Chapter 73

After Sam says it all - after he just explodes with how fucked up and wrong and horrible this all is, after he promises, swears that he's going to make it stop, whether his brother thinks it needs to or not - Dean is silent for a long time.

Sam keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop, waits for a sudden burst of anger, a stream of invective and denial or a bitter, biting retort, but it doesn't come. There's nothing, not even a crass joke to break the awkward, yawning silence. Dean stares at the windshield with distant, unseeing eyes, his fingers slowly, unconsciously furling and unfurling on the wheel, and Sam—

Sam is confused.

Because this is not how Dean should be reacting. Having his kid brother lay down the law like that? Having him disagree with Dean that vehemently? There's no way he'd take that lying down. He should be pissed, should be defensive and blustering or redoubling his efforts to convince Sam that he's wrong about everything, that it really is No Big Deal and he's freaking out over nothing. But having Dean listen to what Sam has to say and then just sit there, quietly thinking it over? Yeah, no. Outside of Sam's wildest dreams, that doesn't happen.

Except apparently it does, and that doesn't just confuse Sam; it scares the hell out of him. There's a look on Dean's face, a look that's hard and closed-off, a hastily thrown up shield that can't quite cover up the fact that underneath the surface, Dean's wracked with guilt, turning something over and over in his head. Sam knows that look.

It's the look Dean used to wear when he'd tell Sam that monsters weren't real or that Dad was gonna be home for Christmas this year or that he wasn't mad about Sam wanting to go to college, really, he wasn't. It's the look he wore in Colorado after Dad told him about the demon's blood coursing through Sam's veins.

It's a look that means he's hiding something, that he's lying about something and he hates himself for it.

That means— Oh God, that means there's _more_. There's something here that even Sam doesn't know, a piece he's missing, and how horrible must it be that Dean would hide it now, after all of the messed up shit that's happened in their incredibly messed up lives?

Sam swallows down the wave of panic and paranoia, the thousand awful possibilities that come flickering through his brain one after another, the terror that makes his heart constrict in his chest, grips him by the throat and screams that Dean knows, that he's finally found that last twisted secret Sam's been able to keep and it's over and Sam's ruined everything.

No.

No, he can't afford to think like that. He can't fall apart. Not now. He has to tune out the fear as much as he can and think about this.

Whatever secret Dean's keeping, it'll come out one way or another. If Sam presses him on it now, Dean'll just find some way to wiggle out of it. He'll deny, deny, deny until it blows up in both of their faces. At least this time, Sam has a warning. At least now he _knows_ Dean's hiding something.

He can still fix this. He can head it off, whatever it is. Nobody knows Dean better than he does. If anyone can figure it out before the rug gets yanked out from under them, it's Sam. He just needs to watch and wait.

It's only a matter of time.

"Here we go," Dean says in a low voice when Ellen flicks on her signal and slows down to make a turn.

They follow her off the highway and down an unmarked dirt path so overgrown with weeds that it's more of a suggestion than an actual road, a trail carved out by tire tracks winding away from the highway and through a gap in the narrow tree-line. Beyond the trees, there's a seemingly endless stretch of empty farmland, the fallow, trampled fall of former wheat field punctuated only by an abandoned, crumbling farmhouse barely visible in the distance and a few straggling, half-wild heads of grain.

Even though they made it to the meet-up a good half hour earlier than Ellen had predicted, the Campbells are already there waiting for them. Their old pickup truck, parked in the middle of one of the scrubby fields, and the two men leaning against its side are the only signs of life in any direction.

"You better be packing, Sammy," Dean orders, driving over the uneven terrain with a look of deep concentration. Ellen pulls off a few yards away from the Campbells, and Dean follows her lead, throwing the Impala into park beside her.

Sam nods, reaching for his Taurus, and realizes belatedly that he's still holding the same, unopened protein bar that he's been fiddling with the whole drive. He's silently grateful that Dean's been so lost in thought that he hasn't noticed. The last thing he needs right now is his brother bullying him about not eating enough. He hastily stuffs it into his jacket pocket before Dean gets the chance to make some stupid comment like "Eat it or marry it, Sammy," and is surprised to feel his fingers brush against something plastic. He pulls out his cellphone, grimacing at his own stupidity. He could've been charging it this whole time if he hadn't gotten so caught up thinking about Dean and this morning and secrets… God, this is giving him a headache.

But Dean's already cut the Impala's ignition, so Sam just drops the dead phone back in his pocket with a sigh, ignoring what he's pretty sure is a highly judgement look from Dean, and then gets to checking his weapons.

Ellen sidles up to the car and raps sharply on the window with her knuckles. Dean raises an eyebrow at Sam before he opens his door and clamors out. Sam follows him, rolling his shoulders to stretch the kinks out of his back.

"Now, boys," Ellen says quietly. "You remember what I said about you being deaf, dumb, and mute, don't you?"

"Yeah," Dean answers with a grimace, and then after Ellen cranks an eyebrow up, amends: "Yes, ma'am."

"Good," Ellen nods. "Sam?"

Sam raises a fist and signs 'Yes' in ASL, grinning when Dean's scowls at him.

"Freaking show-off," his brother grumbles.

"Come on," Ellen says with a long-suffering sigh, leading the way across the field.

As they get closer, Sam's able to get a good look at the Campbells for the first time. He searches their faces and feels a frisson of shock shoot down his spine. They've got Dean's eyes - _Mom's_ _eyes_ - both of them. They're colder than the ones Sam knows, older and harder, but they're Dean's eyes just the same. He glances over at his brother, disconcerted, but if Dean's noticed anything, it's not showing on his face.

The older of the two men has a shotgun slung across his back and a pistol strapped to his thigh, and the younger one is polishing his own piece, watching them warily. He snaps the clip back in and holds the gun in a loose fist at his side, not even bothering to tuck it away in the holster he has attached to his belt next to an enormous silver knife. The Campbells are making it abundantly clear that they're armed, but somehow it doesn't feel like posturing or like it's meant to be a threat. They wear their weapons casually, like they're no different from their battered canvas jackets or pairs of thick work-boots, and when they walk through the field to meet them, they do it with stiff backs and squared shoulders, perfectly paced with one another, like they're marching to a silent drum. They're all soldier, right down to the military style buzz cuts, and despite the evidence literally staring him in the eyes, Sam just can't picture his mother being one of these people.

"Ellen," the older of the two says, nodding in greeting. "You didn't mention you'd be bringin' company."

"I could say the same about you," Ellen responds. Her voice is Sunday-in-the-park pleasant.

"Well, guess you got me there," the man says with a good-natured smile that doesn't come close to reaching his eyes. "These boys kin to you?"

"Matter o' fact, they are," Ellen tells him, crossing her arms.

The man looks between Sam and Dean, clearly sizing them up. That polite smile never leaves his face, but his eyes are sharp, piercing.

"Well?" he asks in that same, amiable tone of voice. "Aren't you gonna introduce us?"

Ellen's mouth tightens into a thin line of displeasure, but she doesn't miss a beat, displeasure melting into wry amusement as she gestures to Sam and Dean.

"This is Bo," she says nodding at Dean before tilting her head towards Sam, "and that's Luke."

The man nods, apparently satisfied and very obviously having never seen an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard in his life, and Sam can understand Ellen giving fake names for them, he really can, but Bo and Luke Duke? Really?

"Nice to meet you two," he says. "I'm Benjamin Campbell, and this's Elijah."

Elijah Campbell just stares at them in stony silence. Sam gives him tight smile.

"Howdy," Dean says wryly. Sam elbows him in the side as subtly as he can, ignoring the stormy glare he gets in response.

"And that there's Mark," Benjamin Campbell continues, gesturing over Sam's shoulder.

Sam turns quickly, starting when he see a tall, blond man coming up from behind them, shouldering a rifle. Next to him, Dean draws in a breath, gets a hand on Sam's elbow and tugs his brother behind him on instinct.

The man - Mark - nods to them wordlessly, striding between the Winchesters and Ellen to take a spot at Benjamin Campbell's elbow. He'd been crouching in the tree-line, Sam realizes, watching them pull up, making sure they weren't bringing company or being followed. He must have been waiting for some signal from the other two before he came out.

He'd been there the entire time, so hidden and quiet that none of them had been able to spot him. It's unsettling, a reminder that no matter how polite they're being right now, these people are dangerous. From the smug cast of Ben Campbell's features, Sam suspects that's why they did it. They're trying to get the upper hand, to knock them all off-guard. He spares another look at Dean, who's still standing ramrod straight, shoulder to shoulder with Sam.

Well, looks like it worked on two of them.

"Hey there, Mark," Ellen says calmly, refusing to let even a hint of surprise grace her features. For all Sam knows, she actually was expecting this trick, or something like it. "Benjamin, how's your Uncle Rob doing these days? Still hangin' in there?"

"'Fraid he passed a few years back," the man tells her. "Heart attack."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Ellen says. "Now, that'd mean who's callin' the shots these days? Joel?"

Benjamin's face doesn't change but a muscle twitches minutely at the corner of his eye. Apparently his friendly persona isn't going to extend to any discussions about the inner workings of the Campbell family. What a surprise.

"Well, alright," Ellen say breezily, not missing a beat. "How about little Irma? You still steppin' out with her?"

The expression on the older hunter's face softens so slightly Sam almost misses it.

"I am. As a matter of fact, she's my wife now."

The corner of Ellen's mouth twitches slightly.

"She's your cousin too, ain't she?"

"_Second_ cousin," the man corrects her tightly, and it's abundantly clear that the Campbells are well aware of the jokes other hunters make about their family tree.

Looks like those rumors aren't that far off, either. Great. So Dean got the eyes, and Sam got the incestuous proclivities. That seems fair.

"Well, now that we're done exchanging pleasantries." Ben Campbell clears his throat. "You said you came across something to do with one of our cases, Ellen?"

She nods.

"Was looking into something in Lawrence, happened to run across death certificates for Samuel Campbell and my cousin Deanna," she explains. "Of course, those were barely worth the paper they were printed on for all they told me about what really happened to the two of them. I need the full story, see if their deaths could've been related to what I'm hunting."

"And what's that?"

"Looks like a demon," Ellen tells him. "A big sucker, too, if the omens are anything to go by."

"What omens?" Benjamin asks immediately. Sam half expects him to whip out paper and a pen and start taking notes.

"Cattle deaths, crop failures, freak weather," Ellen lists. "You know anything about that?"

"We might," Benjamin evades. "You're sayin' these omens are cropping up again?"

"Looks like they have been for a while now," Ellen confirms, giving him a hard look.

"Specific locations?"

"Lawrence," Ellen says slowly. "A whole bunch of other places, but I don't have any names for you off the top of my head."

The oldest Campbell nods thoughtfully.

"Okay," he says. "Thanks for lettin' us know. We'll look into it."

Sam and Dean exchange alarmed looks. Ellen bristles.

"I ain't asking you to look into it. I'm asking for information."

"Well, right now all I can give you is our word that we'll take care of it," Benjamin tells her. "This is family business. You understand."

Ellen glares at him.

"Deanna was _my_ family," she snaps, "every bit as she was yours, if not more so. You got anything on this, I suggest you think a little bit harder about gettin' in the given' mood."

"Sorry, Ellen." Benjamin shakes his head. "It's nothing personal, but like you said, this is a big fish and you've been out of the game a long time. Best to leave it to the professionals."

Ellen looks apoplectic, steam near to coming out of her ears as she glares at Benjamin, fists clenched and mouth working.

The other hunter ignores her in favor of motioning Elijah and Mark Campbell toward the truck. The three of them turn together and start walking back toward it.

"Hey!" Dean snaps, stepping forward. "We're not done here!"

Benjamin Campbell turns to look back at him, raising an eyebrow.

"No," he says, his voice practically dripping with condescension. "I think we are, Bo."

"Well you better think again," Dean grinds out, "because you're not leaving here until you tell us everything you know about this demon and then some."

"Bo," Ellen hisses in a low, warning voice. "Back. Off."

"Boy, I already told you—" Benjamin Campbell starts.

"It's family business," Dean finishes on a bitter snarl. "Heard you just fine, and like I said, you better think again."

Oh no. Oh no, no, no.

Sam knows that edge in Dean's voice, knows just how close to his brother's berserker button this whole case edges on, how on edge Dean has been in the wake of this morning and their fight and whatever it is that's so bad, so much worse than "you've got demon blood and Dad thinks you should be put down"' that Dean can't even stomach the thought of telling Sam about it. And now, with the Campbells not cooperating and nothing but bad news on the horizon and that say-that-to-my-face-asshole edge to his voice, the fuck-it-all-and-to-hell-with-the-consequences set to Dean's shoulders that Sam usually associates with having to burn ID's and ride hell for leather for the state line…

This is not good. This is very, very not good.

"Because my name is Dean Winchester, and this ain't some random cold case on the back goddamn burner. This is my Mom. Mary Campbell. That name ring a few fucking bells?" Deans snaps, getting in Benjamin's face for all he's worth.

Despite everything, it gratifies Sam, just a little, to see that Dean's taller than the other hunter, meets him toe to toe and doesn't so much as blink when the Campbells flanking Ben thumb free the safeties on their guns with a loud, unison 'click.'

Sam wishes he could say the same for himself, just like he wishes his first impulse was to grab for his Taurus and not something deeper, darker. Something none of them could out-draw.

Something none of them would see coming.

"Samuel and Deanna's kid?" Dean presses on, not even sparing the trigger-happy yahoos at Ben's shoulder a glance as he builds steam. "Yeah, our _mom_. His and mine. That family enough for you, or do I need to shove my foot up your ass, lead us through a few rounds of Kumbaya with your boyfriend's pea-shooter back there before we're close enough to share notes?"

"Dean," Sam sighs even as he relaxes just that little bit, because laying down the law is one thing, but being so- so _Dean_ about it—

"Deaf mutes. I said deaf mutes," Ellen mutters from behind them. "I'm gonna kill Bobby Singer, next chance I get..."

"Look, our names are Sam and Dean Winchester," Sam breaks in, edging in front of Dean and doing his best to salvage the situation. "Our mom was Mary Campbell Winchester. Samuel and Deanna Campbell were our grandparents. And we think we've got a lead on the thing that killed all three of them, so just, any help you could give us here, any at all…"

He trails off, because if Ben Campbell isn't to bending yet, won't bow to curtesy or threats or blood, then there's really nothing else they can do here. But Sam hopes, he goddamn hopes, that this man, this hunter who was born into the life, born into the fight and family and never having one without the other, who still softens at the mention of a girl named Irma, can find it in him to at least give them a chance.

Even after Dean threatened to make him and his backup dancers some horrific redneck combination of bullseye and banjo.

"That's a lot to give on just your say-so, kid," he grumbles, never once looking away from Sam.

"What, you don't believe him? _Look_ at us," Dean snaps from where he's taken up at Sam's shoulder.

He's shoved up close and only barely held back by Sam's arm, and of all the wrong times for Sam to be noticing the press of his brother's arm against his back, the heat of him, shoved in tight and pounding through plaid and denim, of all the wrong times for his whole fucked up, twisted obsession with Dean to rear its ugly goddamn head, right now? Facing down their psychotic, inbred, trigger-happy extended family? Pretty much the wrongest!

"Looks aren't everything," Benjamin grinds out, but it's just a little bit less hostile, a little more considering than it was a moment ago which, thank God for small goddamn favors.

"You'd know," Dean grumbles under his breath, and Sam elbows him sharp in retaliation because he is not screwing this up for them.

"He didn't mean that," Sam apologizes, flush heating him cheeks as something that sounds a hell of a lot like a muttered "Did too," issues from behind him.

"I'm gonna have to make a couple a calls," Benjamin hedges, sending a poisonous glare Dean's way. "See if you check out."

"They will," Ellen assures sharply, stepping forward. "Come on, boys. Best let 'em call their Mamas, see if you're close enough kin to play ball."

"It's procedure—"

"Tell it to the goddamn wind, Ben," Ellen interrupts, crossing her arms and jerking her chin back to the Campbells' pickup. "Go on then. We're waitin'."

She stays planted, arms still crossed as she watches the Campbells trudge sullenly across the field to their truck.

"Figures. Macho Campbell bullshit only responds to more macho Campbell bullshit," she grumbles.

"Ellen, I—" Dean starts, only to get suddenly and viciously cut off.

"I'll get to you in a second, you just wait," Ellen snaps before picking up again as she stomps back through the field towards the cars. "Goddamn Campbells. Goddamn procedure. Twenty five goddamn years and they still gotta call the home office for every goddamn thing."

Sam and Dean follow close on her heels, sending wary glances back across the field to the Campbells every few steps, making sure their only lead on Mom, on this whole case, doesn't drive off into the heavy, listing heads of wheat and off the grid forever.

When they're in the gap between the trunk of the Chevelle and the Impala's grille, Ellen spins on her heel, gives them each a sharp pop on the head in turn.

"_Ow_!" Dean flinches. "The hell was that for?!"

"What the hell part of 'stay back' did you not goddamn understand?" Ellen snaps. "You want to tell me exactly what possessed you to go shootin' your mouth off, giving them every goddamn detail about your goddamn lives right from the get-go?"

"Ellen, it's our Mom," Sam offers weakly.

"An' it was just our names," Dean grumbles, still sullenly rubbing the spot Ellen smacked him.

"Which is more than Ben Campbell needs to call the goddamn mothership and get everything from your social security number to your damn shoe size," she snaps, and she's right. She is so right. "You worried about friends of your daddy's findin' out about what that demon did to your brother? Well, you best believe they are nothing compared to these people, and now you just landed yourself smack-dab in the middle of their radar."

"Ellen—" Dean protests, but she doesn't let him get far.

"We're talking fifty times the firepower and a hundred times the goddamn crazy Dean Winchester! And you just gave them every goddamn breadcrumb they need to land it all right on your collective goddamn head." Ellen rounds on him. "It ever occur to you that I knew the family angle would be your best bet to get intel out of these fuckers, but that there was a good goddamn reason I didn't fucking use it?"

"I didn't think—"

"You're damn right you didn't," Ellen growls. "Winchesters, I swear. Gotta do every goddamn thing your own goddamn way, ain't no payin' no one else no never mind."

"Ellen, we're sorry," Sam apologizes, stepping in front of Dean as his brother paces back, outmatched and outgunned.

"Oh, the hell you are," she grumbles, fires dying down now that Dean has very clearly waved the white flag by ceding the floor to Sam. "You got your goddamn way, come hell or high water, just like you wanted. No matter that now we're gonna have to step twice as fast with half the resources to dodge those secretive goddamn bastards."

"But they might give us what they've got on our Mom, now," Sam offers, chancing a glance up at Ellen.

"They might, sweetie," Ellen admits, softening a little as she meets Sam's eye, "and I hope to god they leave it at that, though I wouldn't hold my breath."

"What's our worst case scenario here?" Dean demands, drawing closer to Sam.

Sam wants to lean into him, he does, wants to just draw up close into the only safe, secure place he's got left, to just make some of this go away, if only for a little while, but that's the line of thinking that led him here, what got him in this mess in the first place, what ended up with him molesting Dean in his goddamn sleep, so no, no safety. No security. Not if that's what it takes for him to rein this in. Not if that's what it takes to control this, to _stop_ it.

To put it down before it ends up hurting Dean again, before it ruins things between them for good.

On the strength of that, on protecting whatever they've got left, Sam straightens, draws back just that little bit from Dean, back to normal – not their normal, but _normal_-normal – back to what it should have been this whole time, back before what was in Sam worked its way in and around and between them and screwed things all to hell.

Dean notices because no matter what Sam's brother might pretend, he's not an idiot, especially when it comes to Sam shoved up close and in his orbit or, in this case, pointedly not. And there's a frown, a quirked eyebrow, half a silent _"What the hell, dude?" _before the memory of this morning's argument hits Dean, twists confusion into the sullen, soundless annoyance of _"Apparently Sammy's still got his panties in a twist," _shooting across his face plain as day.

Sam sticks to his guns, stays put and tells himself it's like setting a broken bone, one that's been left alone too long, healed off-set and twisted.

It'll be hard as hell and painful at first, but better, healthier, for both of them, in the long run.

"Worse case?" Ellen says briskly. "The Campbell's connect the same damn dots your daddy did, come to the same wrong-as-hell conclusion and we got another goddamn burnin' church scenario on our hands."

"And how—" Dean starts, but breaks off, and Sam hates that even without being shoved shoulder to shin with Dean he can still see the self-loathing in his brothers' eyes, see how Dean has already decided that this whole mess, and anything that springs from it, is wholly and completely his fault. "How likely we talkin' on that one?"

"Between 'Pretty Goddamn Certain' and 'I Wouldn't Hold My Goddamn Breath?'" Ellen answers. "I'd say keep a weather eye out, hope to all hell they get distracted with tryin' to close Samuel and Deanna's case and us draggin' your mama's good name through the mud that they don't get drawn into the kid angle."

Dean pinches his lips into a tight, bloodless line. Ellen re-crosses her arms and sighs.

"Best case scenario," she continues, "they decide to take you into the fucking fold, start comin' around, makin' a world of trouble for every last one of us. 'Procedure' this and 'Family' that, so's you're as like to shoot yourself as hear the goddamn word."

"Any help is good help?" Sam offers halfheartedly as he notices the Campbells making their way back across the field.

"Yeah, see if you're still singin' that tune when they start showin' up at your door with fucking pamphlets," Ellen grouses.

She elbows up from the Chevelle's fender and takes point as they move to reconvene with the other hunters.


	74. Chapter 74

"Well, Ben, you're still in a sociable mood," Ellen starts as they close the last few yards between them and the Campbells. "Can it be that these boys are who they say they are?"

"Nah, he just came back 'cause of our sparklin' personalities and remarkable personal chemistry." Dean smirks sharply, sending a razor-edged grin and smartass wink Mark Campbell's way that has the other hunter glaring and purposefully re-adjusting his grip on his rifle.

"Sure as hell wasn't your rapier goddamn wit." Ellen rolls her eyes and tries to swallow a smile as Sam snorts into his sleeve despite himself.

"Dean." Benjamin nods, clearing his throat before sending a glance Sam's way. "I'm..." He clears his throat again. "I'm guessing that's Sam?"

"Hi," Sam offers awkwardly, giving a half wave that has Ellen pinching the bridge of her nose at his side with a deep sigh.

"So, you ready to play ball?" Dean challenges, just enough 'fuck you' in his voice to have Sam drawing closer, marking the weapons the Campbells have on them and which ones they'd be likely to go for first, reminding himself to, if it comes down to it, use bullets _first_ and demon-blood fueled psychic force-punches _second_.

No matter how much more efficient they'd be at getting Dean _not_ shot in the goddamn head over his poor fucking people skills.

"I got the go-ahead to give you what you need on your grandaddy's passin'. Your grandmama's, too," Benjamin adds with a nod at Ellen.

"County records put them at the same time on the same nigh," Ellen says. "That true?"

"It is." Ben nods. "They were in Lawrence chasin' those omens you cottoned onto, Ellen. The crops, cattle deaths, storms, the whole nine."

"They know it was a demon they were after?" Dean demands.

"Had it everything but pinned," Ben says. "It got them 'fore they got it, looks like."

"How'd you figure?" Ellen chimes in sharply.

"Ellen, you might not wanna…" Benjamin hedges, eyes not quite meeting hers.

"Spill it, Ben." Ellen orders. "I ain't goin' anywhere."

"I didn't know Deanna well," Ben starts, looking awkward and just this side of uncomfortable, "but I knew her enough, and she was a damn fine hunter, Ellen. Damn fine wife and mother, too. Harvelles oughta be proud—"

"That we lost another goddamn daughter to the goddamn cause," Ellen gusts. "Just tell me what I gotta write home what got her, Ben."

He hesitates. For all that he's been less than helpful with them so far, he's been fighting a war, same as them, and he's lost people to the fight, same as them, and Sam can't help but feel a frisson of sympathy, just a little, for him wanting to spare Ellen any hurt he can, wanting to give the details of her cousin's death as gentle as possible.

"Benjamin," Ellen tries again. "You know well as I do, time ain't gonna make this any easier. Out with it."

"He don't know, Ellen." Dean jabs, bristling at Sam's side. "He's just blowin' smoke up our asses while he figures out a way to say they got no clue what happened, much less what did it."

And whatever Benjamin Campbell needed to give over the rest of the story, apparently that was it, because his head's snapping up, details spilling quick, fast, and in a hurry.

"The hell we don't," he bites out. "Deanna's neck snapped, 'pparently of its own accord, and Samuel took a knife to the spine and kept goin' 'fore he dropped in a pile of sulfur an inch thick. Now you think of anything but a demon that'll do that, I got a whole clan'd love to hear it."

"EMF?" Sam asks clinically, trying to take all the information in and dial the tension down all at the same time, but it's hard, because from what he's hearing, a demon – _The_ Demon – possessed their grandfather, killed their grandmother, and then- then just _stopped_- and what does that _mean?_ Why would it play out like that?

"Our files say the place was light in' up like a Christmas tree. Poor little Mary wouldn't go near it after."

"Our mom was there?" Dean breaks in.

"Saw the whole thing." Ben confirms. "Tore her up somethin' awful, report's anything to go by. She dropped outta active duty, kept an eye on the area, in case anything else cropped up from the bastards. Didn't hear word on her 'til she passed a little on down the line."

"And you never connected the two?" Sam demands, sparks catching in his mind like wildfire, because if she was there, saw the whole thing - her mom gone and her dad gone and Yellow Eyes wearing him like a bad suit, that awful, terrible voice promising to make it stop, to make it all stop if only she'd give him a little something in return, a soft, shadowy promise of someday-down-the-line - and god, if it was too late for her family, if it was for Dad, if it was for Dean, if it were the only way to save them- to protect them—

Well, Sam said it himself, offered it up to Dean like an olive branch in the cold, concrete and steel of Pastor Jim's panic room, right before locks clicked and tables turned and they lost sanctuary, Salvation, for good:

_Good people do bad things for a reason._

And Mom's reason?

Mom's reason is Sam's reason. Is his reason for waking up in the morning and falling asleep at night, everything he ever needed or wanted to keep going, keep breathing, keep trying. It's wrong, so wrong, but so right at the same goddamn time. Sam should hate her, this woman he's barely ever met, can hardly even remember outside of flames and fables, but he can't help but understand, because he knows her side and he knows _their_ side. If it were him, if his life was in ruins and his future in the balance, if he had to choose between his past, between everything he was born to but couldn't stand and everything he didn't deserve but couldn't help but need like burning, like _breathing_, everything he always wanted but could never, _ever_ let himself have—

Well, Sam thinks, feeling the plaid of his shirtsleeves brush against the scar on his arm, still sensitive to the touch after almost a year of healing, he made his choice. Made it a long time ago.

And apparently, so had their Mom.

"You never thought that her death had something to do with what they were hunting?" Sam repeats, stronger this time. "That maybe that's why it all stopped and started up again so suddenly?"

For the first time, Benjamin Campbell falters, something like surprise flickering across his stoic features.

"Mary died in a house fire," he says slowly, brow furrowed.

"Exactly ten years after her parents got killed by a demon," Dean grinds out. "You'd think the 'professionals' would pick up on that. Did you even check for omens? Or did you just not care?"

Benjamin looks thoughtful, trying to dredge up memory.

"They sent some people out," he says, very clearly going off the Campbell book now, no longer spitting spoon-fed information and, Sam notes with more than a little scorn, moving slower for it. "Had 'em do the usual stuff. EMF, interviews, all that."

"And nothing strange came up?" Sam demands, trying to wrap his mind around the idea that this case - Mom's case, the case that's shaped their entire lives - could've just fallen through the cracks. "Nothing?"

"Well, I remember they couldn't get hold of the husband 'cause he'd blown town," Benjamin says, "but the police said he was real torn up. They didn't figure he had anything to do with it."

Sam almost wants to laugh. All these years, he thinks bitterly, all these years Dad's talked about how he had no choice, how no one believed him, and it turns out that if he'd stuck around Lawrence a little bit longer, they'd have had a whole family of hunters looking for thing that killed Mom.

"You're damn right he didn't," Dean snarls. "No, if anyone's to blame on this one, it's your camp, buddy."

"Now you look here—" Ben snaps, hand going automatically to his weapon, Mark and Elijah following suit behind him.

"Ten years!" Dean thunders, surging forward. "Ten years to the goddamn day, and you can't put that together? You can't follow 'A' plus 'B' equals 'Deal'?! And you're worried about _us_ bein' amateurs?"

"Dean, come on," Sam mutters, shouldering him back for the good of the case, for information and intel, but if he weren't the responsible goddamn brother, if this asshole tries to defend letting their whole _lives_ slip through the cracks one more time… "Calm down, man."

"I'm fine," his brother snarls, shaking Sam off and stalking towards the cars while Ellen marks Benjamin, glaring hard and fast behind them.

"I'll make some calls," Ben grinds out. "See if we got anything else on this demon for ya. But I can promise you here and now, ain't no way one of ours did what you're sayin' Mary did."

"'Fuck you very much, then," Dean snaps over his shoulder. "Thanks for nothin', asshole."

"Dean..." Sam calls, torn between wrapping up the meet with Ellen and going after his brother.

"Go on, honey." Ellen jerks her chin Dean's way. "See to your brother. I'll take care of things here."

"Thanks." He spares a nod Benjamin's way before walking down the field to where Dean is wearing a path in the trampled wheat down the length of the Impala's fender.

"Goddam useless," Dean fumes as Sam catches up to him. "Won't even look facts in the goddamn face. How far do you gotta have your head shoved up your ass not to see- not to do the goddamn math and- and they were there, Sam! They were right there! Could have blown this whole thing sky high, taken Yellow Eyes out right then and there!"

"They didn't have the Colt," Sam reminds him, hands in his pockets as he leans against the Impala, waits for Dean to outpace his anger. He can do that much. "They couldn'tve killed him, not like we can. Couldn't undo what he did to me, not then, Dean. They were too late."

"Yeah, well they could have done somethin'," Dean grumbles, pacing slower now, coming down from the anger just a little. "'Stead of just scratchin' their heads and deciding to just look the other goddamn way."

"Not like it's an easy thing to swallow, someone you think you know doing something like this," Sam offers. His fingers find his cell in his pocket, still uncharged, fiddling with the bricked shell, scrubbing a smear of soot away with the cuff of his shirt as he tries to find something to do with his hands, something other than reaching out, tugging Dean away from the rage and getting in close and confirming, with hands and heat, that no matter what happened between Yellow Eyes and their mom, no matter how bad the Campbells might have dropped the ball on her case and theirs and every other goddamn thing, he and Dean are still here, they're still okay, still some sad, fucked-up semblance of functioning.

"Yeah..." Dean nods, voice heavy as he stares down at the trampled weeds beneath his feet, and Sam can hear Mom in his voice, his brother's ragged, rage-filled accusation aimed at Ben Campbell earlier.

Tens years exactly. Sulfur in the room. 'A' plus 'B' equals Deal.

"Good people, right, Sammy?" his brother rasps, barely getting the words out as he looks up, meets Sam's eye.

"He played her, Dean," Sam repeats, phone forgotten between his fingers as his head snaps up. "Yellow Eyes had to have played her."

"I know." Dean nods. "I know. I just... Wish I could believe as easy as you do, that's all."

"You think any of this is easy?" Sam laughs weakly, shooting Dean an incredulous glance. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, well, you're handlin' it without beatin' the crap outta anyone or flyin' off the handle every two seconds, so you got one up on me." Dean shrugs, settling to lean against the Impala next to Sam, and next to is okay, right? No way Sam can make something sick and twisted out of _next to_.

No way he has to give this up, too.

"Maybe you missed the part where I blew up a goddamn building?" Sam snorts, stupidly, selfishly relaxing beside Dean against the gleaming chrome and glossy, sun-warmed steel, "or when I force-punched Dad in the face?"

"Extenuating circumstances," Dean dismisses, plucking the cell out of Sam's hands and digging the keys from his pocket. "Now charge this damn thing up again. We gotta warn Bobby that we're on our way back and Ellen's in a mood."

"What's that gonna do?" Sam asks, recapturing his phone and snagging the keys before letting himself into the front seat.

"Give him a chance to find a case somewhere in Alaska, if he's smart."

Sam snorts as he cranks the ignition and plugs his phone in to charge, catching a glimpse of Ellen making her way across the field as he straightens up.

"Whatd'ya think, Ellen?" Dean rumbles from his place against the fender. "Cousin Ben gonna be sendin' us a Christmas card anytime soon?"

"Oh, yeah," she rolls her eyes, "You're his new favorites. Gonna get front row seats at little Irm-ette's christening."

"Irmette?" Sam grins from his place in the driver's seat.

"Listen, Campbell's might be plenty good hunters, but as you can see, they're not so great on the creativity front. Thank god they got two whole books of Bible names to go off of, else we'dve just sat through a meet with Colt Campbell, Hunter Campbell, and Campbell Campbell."

"No kiddin'." Dean smirks as Sam's phone buzzes to life in his palm. "Thought old Ben was gonna short-circuit, he had to go off-book any longer."

"He very nearly did, the ornery bastard." Ellen chuckles, cracking a grin, "His face when you boys laid out your mama's case like that- Well, makes my MacKenzie heart just grow three sizes, I'm tellin' you."

"Bad blood there?" Dean asks as Sam's email buzzes.

"Just about five generations sick of listening to how there were Campbells hunting their way over on the goddamn Mayflower." Ellen snorts as Sam taps his mail client open, stylus clicking. "Like anyone can verify that shit."

Spam... Spam... Message from Stanford ("Blah blah School of Business Administration!" Not likely. Delete.)... Message from Becky ("Paris is soo boring in summer. Miss you!" Reply later, then delete.)... Busty Asian Beauties (_Dean_. Delete _and_ unsubscribe, then change password on laptop _again_...) and- and one more, from a day or so ago...

It's... It's from _Ash_.

"Dean!" Sam interrupts, tapping in the password, fingers shaking over the number-swapped letters, praying, god _praying_ that the other hunter hadn't changed it before- before. "Ellen, you're gonna wanna look at this!"

"What?"

"It's from Ash," Sam explains, jabbing the buttons of his phone in frustration as the goddamn thing tells him he can't display the goddamn media in its current fucking format, "but I can't open it here. I need my laptop, wi-fi—"

"Then let's get a move on." Ellen nods, her mouth tight, jaw set as she digs her keys from her pocket. "I know a place a little ways out from here."


	75. Chapter 75

Unsurprisingly, it's a roadhouse.

The place is cut from the same cloth as Ellen's place, a sagging, sunken spit of a building on the outskirts of Waterloo, "Vic's" spelled out across a warped, weatherbeaten stretch of faded-blue siding in flickering, uneven neon, uninspiring in the muted midday sun as sits stranded in an empty stretch of parking lot between what looks to be an abandoned garage and a half-out-of-business charter service.

"It's a palace, Ellen," Dean remarks, slamming the door to the Impala and crunching his way across the cigarette butt-littered pavement to the Chevelle.

Sam takes equal measure of the place from his brother's side, uncomfortably shifting his laptop bag from one shoulder to the other as he tries and fails to judge what a normal space between brothers even would be here without tipping Dean off and sending him sulking all over again.

"A palace that doesn't open 'til two," Sam notes, spotting the copier-paper notice scotch-taped to the place's front door and checking his watch.

12:45.

"Well I figure someone'll be around and in a drink-pourin' mood, we act sociable enough," Ellen grunts, ducking under the dirt-flecked, chipped gingerbread awning and shouldering open the rusty, painted-over door with a heft. "Come on, boys. No sense lettin' all the A/C out."

Dean follows her through readily enough, taking the measure of the place from the inside with a marked relaxing of his shoulders, an easier set to his brother's stride now that they're standing on worn, warped flooring, sandwiched between bar stools and pool tables, salt-stains and beer suds battling with the place's wheezing, whining, whistling A/C for dominance in the stale, Midwestern air as the faltering, flickering fluorescents try and fail to banish completely the dark, dim corners of the dive.

The place is the Roadhouse Redux, from the battered, beaten bar to the humming, half-cocked neon sign declaring the two dart boards and single, scarred pool table the resident Game Room to the lazy, laconic click of the jukebox in the corner, clicking over to the Righteous Brothers as they cross the threshold.

Sam will give Ellen credit, though. For all the lace curtains and rose patterned wallpaper in the apartment she kept for herself and Jo, she never brought gingerbread molding anywhere near the business end of the Roadhouse itself, much less tacked the stuff up inside and out, then lined the whole thing in flickering red neon. As if that weren't garish enough, there are what looks to be a couple hundred ceramic Jim Beam bottles shelved in shadowed rows to the ceiling behind the bar, each and every one in vary states of dingy, disreputable disrepair.

"Long time no see, Ellen." a voice crackles from somewhere down the bar, and Sam turns from a particularly unsettling bottle in the shape of a clown (Why?! Why would you even?!), to see a woman roughly Ellen's age with dark hair, wearing a white Vic's t-shirt and hefting a keg in from a back room.

"Peggy, they still got you haulin' kegs up from the back?" Ellen laughs, coming around the bar to give the other woman a quick hug and then, just as quickly, snagging the rim and getting it over the threshold and behind the bar with a quick tug. "Thought that's what you kept them nieces and nephews around for?"

"It is," the woman laughs, giving Ellen a clap on the back and straightening up, "but you know as soon as the school started, they done gone off and left me. How've you been? You know, I had those cousins of yours in here not a week ago askin' after you. Some of Bill's kin, too."

"I hope you told 'em they wanted to know what I was doin', they could just truck on down the highway and ask me their damn selves," Ellen grouses, and the other woman, Peggy, just laughs.

"I did." She grins. "They said 'f they did that, you'd just charge 'em twice for their booze, tear 'em a new one, and send 'em packin' before they even got out so much as a 'How d'ya do?' and that they'd just as soon save themselves the gas and tongue-lashin, ask me instead."

How these cousins of Ellen's managed to say anything at all with as much as this woman talks, Sam will never know. He sets his laptop bag in an empty stool and drops down next to Dean at the bar.

"That's just how I like my relations." Ellen smirks. "Distant as all hell."

"Well, you know I'll never say no to bein' your switchboard," Peggy says, "and speaking of, who are these tall drinks of handsome? Not boyfriends of your Josie, I hope?"

"You are a married woman, Peggy Deutsch," Ellen reminds, trying to bite back a reluctant smile as the other woman reaches across the bar to shake hands with Sam and Dean.

"Peggy Deutsch-Knutson," she corrects with a wink, "but I can kick ol' Knuts to the curb, either a' you tall drinks of gorgeous are single."

"Nice to meet you," Sam stalls with a shaky, unsteady half-smile.

Dean makes eye contact with Ellen, a silent, split-second check on whether, Mary Sunshine smile and bubbly gossip or not, this lady's alright to give their real names to. A second later, he's brother's back, sidling in and taking her hand like the born charmer he is. Apparently he got the go-ahead from Ellen that this woman, for all that she stands every chance of talking all of their ears off, is harmless enough in the grand scheme of things.

"That's Sam. I'm Dean, and this Knuts is every bit the drag he sounds, I'm happy to announce that we are both, very much single," his brother smarms, leaning on the bar and laying it on thick, for all that this lady's old enough to be their mother.

At the very least a matronly aunt.

"Hell, Ellen, I like him!" she cackles, taking her hand back and laughing her way down the bar. "You ain't usin' 'em, I'll take 'em both off your hands."

"Tough luck," Ellen snorts, wry turn to her mouth. "They got work to do, and they need to get down to it. Jaimie ever get her girl to hook up the internet for ya'll?"

"Somehow or another," Peggy gusts, blowing frazzled brown bangs from her eyes and fishing a battered, beaten business card from behind the bar's single register before passing it over to Sam, "but hell if I can make North or South of the damn thing half the time."

"Sam honey, you need anything else to get down to it?" Ellen asks, shooting him a glance as he eyes the password scrawled on the card and digs out his laptop.

"No, ma'am," Sam shakes his head before Dean open his mouth and interrupt this lady's day any more by asking her to pull them up some drafts and a couple of burgers.

"Then Peggy and I are just gonna pop into the back for some shop talk, see if we can rustle up some lunch in the process. Robbie still workin' the grill, Peg?"

"I wish," Peggy snorts as they move down the bar. "Picked up for Schenectady with that new wife of his. We got Jeff back there now and bless his heart— Well, he's a dream with the vendors, but poor thing can't toast a bun without turnin' it into a hockey puck, believe you me."

They disappear through the back door. Peggy's chatter and Ellen's intermittent grumbles fade in a moment into the soft, indistinct sibilance of the hum of the air conditioner and the slow, steady spin of the jukebox, Bill Medley's long, low baritone winding down into a sluggish, sleepy heartbeat of white noise.

"Never thought I'd see Ellen ditching out on a hunt for girl talk," Sam remarks, more to have something to say than anything as he watches the laptop work through its boot cycle on the battered bar in front of him.

"She's not looking for gossip, she's looking for Jo." Dean mutters, same shut off, shuttered look in his eye from the car this morning, from before, shelved for the hunt and making nice with Proprietor Peggy but back in full force here and now as he spins the plastic placard announcing Vic's drink specials between his fingers, house specialties (The Pinecone!) warring with Dollar Wine Wednesdays in a wobbling, whirling kaleidoscope between his fingers. "Puttin' the word out. Kid's worked in a hunter dive her whole life. Money gets tight, places got work openin' up with kids goin' back to school. Might be she goes back to what she knows or near enough. Talker like this lady? Ellen'll know Jo so much as looks at any dive from here to Albany."

Sam's mouth drops open because- because of course. Ellen is- and Jo is her daughter- and she's been bending over backwards to help them ever since before Jo took off, and- and of course she'd want to find her, want to know that her kid was okay, especially in the wake of the only home they've ever known burning down, and especially especially with all the things that they know are hiding in the dark, dogging their steps and just waiting, waiting for their chance to strike.

"I- I didn't," he gropes, can't find anything, can't believe he missed- missed this. This is big, really big, and he always told himself he was the perceptive one, the one who picked up on this stuff, but with the case, with all the stuff with Mom, with Dad and Dean and him, all tangled up and twisted together, he didn't- he didn't even think, not once. "Ellen didn't—"

"She wouldn't." Dean snorts, never taking his eye from the placard spinning between his fingers. Pinecone, plastic, Wine Wednesdays, over and over again. "Ellen, goin' on about her personal crap when we've all got shit to shovel? Hunting Shit? Big Damn Deal Shit? 'S not her style."

"Dean..." Sam tries, tries because it's not just Ellen that shoves it all down for the hunt, shelves it all when times get tough, just so they don't make them that much tougher for everyone else.

It's not just Ellen trying to find her way back to her daughter as the world, their whole world, falls apart around them, that's got that damn shuttered look in his brother's eye, his face tight and drawn, eyes sullen and serious when they should be laughing and leering and giving Sam hell from across the bar, teasing him for being a nerd and a geek and then egging him into setting up a game of Bank on the pool table while he goes and cons Rob or Jeff or whoever the hell it is working the grill to pop them out a couple of unburnt burgers while Sam's laptop warms up and solves this damn case for them.

And yeah, part of that lands on Sam's doorstep. Part of that is genuinely Sam's fault for pulling back, for pushing forward his radical anti-incest agenda and doing his very goddamn best not to act out his sick, twisted, possibly demonically-motivated fantasies on his brother's unconscious body which, in a backwards and very frustrating turn of events, is landing him deeper in the doghouse with Dean than jacking him off in his sleep ever goddamn did which, Jesus, their fucking lives.

So yeah. Dean is shoving down the crap from the case and the crap from this morning and the crap from them arguing about this morning and the crap from Sam trying to keep what happened this morning from happening ever again and whatever deep, dark, secret crap he's got buried down beneath all that other crap.

His brother's life is a big pile of crap right now, and it's all, directly or indirectly, Sam's craptastic fault.

Dean's life sucks because Sam's in it. He knows that, and he knows Dean's gotta know that, at least a little or some variation on that. That might just be the deep, dark, awful thing Dean still won't tell him, and Sam's trying to deal with it, he is, trying to shelve it all and shove it down without the safe, sane, steadying standby of Dean, warm and here beneath his fingertips because they can't do that anymore, can't because- because—

Because Sam might be a monster.

Might have had the choice whether or not to be black, to be twisted and tainted and wrong, stolen from him in his cradle when he was six months old, might have had it sold out from under him before he or Dean were ever born, broken off and bartered away in a bargain the details of which they may never know.

But hell if he turns around and does the same damn thing to Dean.

Hell if he lets this, any of this, hurt his brother any more than it already has.

"What?" Dean asks, but it's not so much a question as a dare, a challenge, a dig that Sam should just try to take a poke at the sleeping dragon that Handjobgate and whatever the hell it is Dean is hiding has made him, and you know, Sam might not have much of a plan for the former beyond "Don't Let it Ever, Ever Happen Again," but the latter...

Sam doesn't know what he is, what Yellow Eyes' blood turned him into all those years ago. He doesn't know what their dad's doing or what's in Ash's email or what the hell he's gonna do about psychic powers or demon destinies or kind of, maybe being the man-psychic-demon-kid-thing that ends the world as they know it, but he knows Dean.

He knows his brother and he knows his tells and he knows that if he just waits, waits and stays calm and pays attention, Dean'll tell him.

Maybe he won't mean to. Maybe he won't want to, maybe he won't even know he's telling him, but Sam sticks around long enough, he just keeps his goddamn head on straight, he'll figure it out. Accidentally or on purpose, Dean will tell him and things'll get better and they'll get through this.

They'll get through this. They will.

After all, compared to every other goddamn reveal they've been dragged kicking and screaming through the past couple of days, how much worse could it get?

"She could, you know. Tell us," Sam offers, ducking his head back down to his laptop to click through the login page, sidestepping meeting Dean head on but still not quite taking the easy way out, a solid advance to the middle that lands the ball smack dab in the middle of Dean's court, because he didn't know what was going on with Ellen and he doesn't know what's going on with Dean but he's gonna find out.

If it's the last thing he does on this earth, he's gonna find out.

"She won't," Dean dismisses, placard clattering to the bar in font of him as he lets it drop. "No need to bring it up, make it that much worse by makin' a big deal out of it."

And that's Dean Logic, Winchester Logic, if Sam ever heard it, handed down from on emotionally constipated high by John Winchester himself, and even if neither of them say the name, the association is there. The knowledge of exactly whose playbook Dean's using here is there, and it's just similar enough, just close enough to home to burn, too similar to cages and closets and demon blood, Yellow Eyes and secrets kept and never knowing, never really knowing, which version of the truth you're getting, so much that the entire thing rings wrong, unreal, so harsh and hollow in the hushed, strained silence of the empty bar it has Dean bridging the awful, unspoken gap Sam's staked between them, nudging Sam, just a little, and Sam—

God, he can't help but latch onto it, that tiny slice of casual, of usual, of can't-have-it-again-or-it'll-happen-again, leaning into Dean just that little bit, allowing himself just this small thing, just this once.

Just one for the road...

"She's not alone in this, Dean," he murmurs, hoping, God, hoping that Dean gets it, that it makes it through his thick goddamn skull. "She doesn't have to be alone in this."

'You can tell me,' Sam wants to say, wants to just snatch that stupid little placard from the bar and smack his brother in the head with it until something goddamn sinks in through his thick goddamn skull. 'Whatever it is, you can tell me. I'm not going anywhere.'

"She's gonna be," Dean gruffs, shoving off from the barstool to go cram quarters in the jukebox behind them, "no matter how much we shoot our mouths off."

A 'shut up, Sam' if he's ever heard one, Sam thinks, huffing out a sigh as he types in the wifi password and pulls up his browser.

"What's Ash got to say?" Dean rumbles as he takes his seat again, a spare quarter between his fingers, and if he starts spinning the goddamn thing, Sam is hurling it at the nearest Jim Beam bottle.

Ten points if he can nail the clown one by the register.

"Only one way to find out." Sam sighs, laying down arms for now, but not giving up, never giving up.

He opens his mail, clicks again on the message sitting there in his inbox, the one from 'elcazador69', the one with the time stamp two days after the fire at the Roadhouse. It could be a lot of things, could be things they know, things they don't know, a hello or a goodbye or a goddamn chain letter full of cat pictures, but Sam hopes, hopes beyond hope, that this is what finally, finally breaks it open for them.

Hopes that if nothing else, nothing else, they have a lead. Any lead.


	76. Chapter 76

What it is, at the end of the day, is a video.

A video that needs to download before they can fucking watch it.

Cue five to seven awkward, awful minutes of staring at a progress bar scooting along at a glacial pace while Dean tries and fails to act like he's not hiding something at Sam's elbow and Sam tries and fails to act like he isn't burning to know what the hell it goddamn is beside him.

And Motörhead is playing.

Sam hates Motörhead.

"Gimme your quarter," Sam demands as the bar sticks at 27% and he's about to go out of his goddamn mind. "I want to put on some good music for a change."

"What?" Dean scoffs. "No. It's my quarter. Find your own. And what's wrong with Motörhead? It's the story-song of the American people, Sam."

"Okay, a) they're British, and b) it's not a story-song, Dean; it's coke-fueled cock rock blasted a few decibels shy of aural assault," Sam grumbles, the strain from all of today's crap weighing down on him and wailing guitars digging into him and about two seconds away from snatching the coin from Dean his damn self.

"Tell me what you've got against oral all of a sudden." Dean snorts, but the joke is weak, strained even by their new goddamn standards, and yesterday—

Goddammit, it wasn't like this yesterday. They'd be joking and jabbing, spilling half in, half out of bar stools as they cracked up at each other or cracked down on the hunt. Either way, it wouldn't be like this, wouldn't be a silent war of double entendres and heavy silences, things meant but not said, said but not meant, the words that do make their way out hollow and haunting the empty air of the bar as they fall flat, echo dark and dissonant in the dank dim of the dive, and it's all Sam's fault.

This is all because Sam fucked up. All of it.

Dean sighs as they sit there watching the progress bar not move across the screen, giving the quarter one heavy half-turn in his hand. Sam knows he feels it, knows his brother knows how wrong this is, how wrong it's all gotten, how fast it's all falling apart. They've spent their lives crammed on bar stools and in booths, in and around and on top of one another, saying and not saying every damn thing that's crossed their minds. Right before Stanford, even after, it was never like this, never this bad. Sam hates himself, hates himself so much for screwing it all up, for fucking up and not having any other answer but this to set things right. He hates it, hates every inch of it, is a half second away from breaking, from just begging Dean to tell him what dark, awful thing teamed up with the nightmare that was this morning to crank their lives from bad to unbearable, but Dean catches him, catches his eye a half-second before Sam breaks, just comes out and begs Dean to goddamn tell him what else there could possibly be, what could be goddamn worse than demon's blood, than boy kings and apocalypses and a brother who's Rosemary's Fucking Baby with an incestuous goddamn hard on, and what?

What could be that bad? Could weigh on Dean that hard after everything? After all they've been through?

Sam almost asks, he does, but Dean just shakes his head, gives the quarter in his goddamn hands another fucking turn. As good as says, 'Not yet, Sammy. Not yet.'

Except, even in his own head, Sam knows that's a lie, knows that that's not what that shake, that shadow in Dean's eye means.

It means later. A later that any other person on the planet would call 'never,' but for Dean just means when he's ready, which is the exact same thing.

Same song, different verse.

He knows Sam knows there's something, just like he knows he doesn't have it in himself to tell, and that's— Sam can work with that. He can. He can just keep trying and keep fighting and hope, hope to god, that by the time they get done with all this, when everything's broken and reset into something less awful, less horrible, something they can both live with…

God, he hopes there's a them left to live with.

And of course now, when everything is a hundred times worse than it was when they sat down, now, when Sam needs something, anything not a reminder of what a failure, what a colossal fuck-up he is, now is when the video loads, when Ash pops, in living, breathing color, to life on Sam's screen.

Just another soul lost to Sam's fire. Joining mom and Jess, Stanford and life outside of hunting, safety and security and living, even a little bit, a life not made of soot and sulfur, outside of knowing he can do good in this world, outside of believing he actually deserved the audiobooks and the fingers in his hair, the slept-in mornings and the shared covers and the warm, strong arms chasing away the nightmares as everything- the guilt and the memories and the expectations and disappointments and the ghosts of everyone in his life he's every let down just- just falls and fades away for a few soft, warm, silent hours.

He should have known better.

He should have just known better.

And then Ash is speaking, dragging Sam from his thoughts by way of a grainy, pixelated webcam recording playing out across the screen as Van Halen filters in from the background, fuzzy and indistinct.

"Hola, amigos!" He nods, wry smile taking up his features as he tosses his hair behind him and waves amiably to the camera, and why did Sam get him involved in this? Why?

"Well, if ya'll are read in' this, I'm guessin' I've shuffled my way off the mortal coil, which?" Ash sighs gustily, cheeks puffing out and bangs skittering with the breath. "S'rough, 'specially considerin' our kind's tendency to leave this life in a violent and bloody fashion, but hey." He shrugs, snagging a pen with an oversized masked wrestler head on the cap and twirling it between his fingers as Dean brings his hand up to rest between Sam's shoulder blades.

Sam should shrug him off. Should just start learning how to bear this crap on his own, but he's just- just so damn tired.

He can't. Not today.

"What are you gonna do, right? Life we live and all," Ash continues as Sam settles into Dean's silent, steady support at his back. Freely, if foolishly, given, even after everything. "Or, you know, not."

Ash lifts a shoulder idly on screen, letting the hand with the pen drop out of frame.

"Point is, ya'll got me workin' on somethin' heavy, and I, good little worker bee that I am," he draws himself up with a half-smirk, wrestler-capped pen holding hand coming up to land over his heart, "back up my work with the religiosity of the truly paranoid. So, listen and be amazed, compadres."

He sits back, and the video cuts to a different day, a different Ash in a different flannel vest, the little Mexican wrestler pen shoved behind his ear now as a different metal track plays in the background.

(Judas Priest this time. "Screaming for Vengeance." Sam never liked it. Likes it even less now.)

"Alright, Winchesters Uno and Dos," Ash sighs into the camera, and Sam wonders bleakly how many times he set up this camera, how many times he went through, over and again, this last conversation with them. "You wanna nail this sonofabitch, next place you're gonna wanna be is 'Bama. Lined up the patterns you gave me, crunched the numbers, fed in the data and next couple weeks, you're in for some prime omenage right over T-town."

He jerks his chin at the screen, presumably where he has the raw feeds playing out in font of him, and sends the luchador nestled over his ear cock-eyed in the process.

"I got the info all laid out for you pretty-like. Alls you gots to do is go hunt down the son of a bitch. And Sam, Dean?" Ash pauses, giving the camera a slow, steady look. "Not that I'm the vengeful type, but seein' how every dot on the map I'm lookin' at's another kid what never got a say in their part in this..."

He shoves a hand through the dishwater-blonde riot of his bangs with a sigh, sending the little wrestler tripping and skittering offscreen in the process.

"Seein' as probably every one of those little dots are goin' through as hard a time as Sam is, but with twice the trouble and half the help?" Another sigh, another look, an absent card of hand through hair, looking for a masked wrestling man that isn't there anymore.

Sam was so wrong to get him involved in this, so, so wrong.

"Well, I don't feel too bad askin' you to take this sucker down hard and get in a couple of licks for me," Ash finishes, giving up on his search for the pen and giving one last, sad half-smile to the camera. "See you two on the other side."

The video ends, reverts to a pane of blank, basic grey in the static, standard-issue sameness of Sam's desktop, and it's just he and Dean again, alone in the still, stifling silence of the abandoned bar.

"Tuscaloosa's about twelve hours out," Dean estimates, reaching out and shutting the laptop without ever taking his hand from Sam's back, and he's starting to look around the bar, shifting like he already wants to be on the road as he sends a glance at the front door to Vic's, around to the back rooms Ellen disappeared into minutes ago, for all that it feels like hours. "We could make it by morning, we push hard."

Sam blinks, eyes glued to where the blank video screen was as it all sinks in, the message from Ash still in his inbox, the ghost of those fingers, playing with that wrestler pen and the strained, staticky echoes of his voice, miles away from teasing about PBR and chili fries (chili cheese fries, his mind corrects), as the message outlived the man, outsmarted Meg and Yellow Eyes and all of their snarling, shark-toothed soldiers to land this one, last blow from beyond.

This is going to be what wins it for them.

This, this one last lead Ash managed to pass them? This is going to be what wins it for them.

As soon as he cards through the reams of research Ash's dead man's switch just dumped in his lap.

As soon as he maps out exactly where in Tuscaloosa they need to be and what family they need to track down and when and where and how Yellow Eyes is gonna sweep in, what they need to do to protect the family but not tip the Hell crowd off and how that all works with his psychic thing, with Meg in the wind and Dad on their tail along with who-knows-how-many hunters besides and Dean, sour and sullen and secretive and fighting Sam so hard to keep things the same even though they have to change, they have to—

"Sam? You alright in there?" Dean breaks his train of thought, and Sam drags himself from the ghost of the computer screen, shoves a hand through his hair with a sigh.

"Yeah." He nods, scrubbing a hand over his face as it all, suddenly catches up to him, weighs down on him like it always, always seems to if he stops moving long enough to let it.

"Listen, Sam, I'm sorry. I know…" Dean starts, breaks off again, like he doesn't know what to say. "I know you and Ash…"

"Forget about it, Dean." Sam shakes his head and avoids his brother's eye, shamelessly stealing a page from his brother's playbook as he shoves his laptop in his bag, because even though he should be following the leads Ash left them, mapping out the omens and looking for the family the demon was targeting and getting them that next lead, that next step, he just can't- can't even look at it right now.

It's too much. It's just too much.

"Got bigger stuff to worry about, right?" Sam shrugs, still avoiding Dean's eye, and maybe it's a dick move, throwing Dean's words back at him, running his own plays against him to skirt talking about this, but with Ash on top of everything...

He's barely moving right now. Only just getting through it all upright and breathing. If Dean turns the stoic asshole switch off and picks now to suddenly start being his brother again, turns everything Sam wants but can't let himself have at him full force, Sam knows he doesn't have it in him to say no, to keep himself from giving in and setting them down a path that's just gonna lead to him taking advantage of Dean all over again and he can't, won't.

He can't and he won't and he wants to. He wants to so bad it hurts.

"It doesn't matter," he mutters, shouldering past Dean towards the flickering, fritzing neon sign marked 'restrooms' without another word.


	77. Chapter 77

When Sam gets back, Ellen's there. God, he forgot about her again, forgot that she's got just as much riding on what was in Ash's email as they do, and one day Sam's gonna not be a completely worthless human being, he really is.

"Ya'll get that toy of Sam's workin'?" she asks, making herself at home at the taps and pulling drafts with a deft hand as she looks between them.

"Yeah." Sam nods, digging his laptop back out of his bag to show her. "Let me just—"

"Why don't you listen for a bit, first," Ellen starts, keeping her hands busy and her eyes down as she sets them up with brews, complete with coasters and napkins and something is up, every single red alert Sam's got going haywire.

"Got somethin' to share, Ellen?" Dean asks, sits up just a little straighter as the condensation gathers on his draft, the fingers of one hand oh-so-casually tracing whorls in the dew, the other edging ever so slightly towards his .45 under the bar, just at the edge of Sam's peripheral vision. Sam follows his lead, shifting slightly to get a better draw on his Taurus.

"Spoke with your daddy a while ago." Ellen chases the admission with a long pull of her beer and huffs out an explosive sigh when Dean responds by getting a fistful of Sam's shirt and not so much pulling him off of the barstool as dragging, Sam's laptop bag tumbling down after in an ungainly gambol as Dean moves for the door.

"Hold your horses," Ellen barks when Dean whirls to glare at her, fist still a hot, heady knot over Sam's shoulder. "I ain't said my goddamn piece yet, and believe me, Dean Winchester, I got a piece you're gonna wanna hear."

"Oh, sorry," Dean snaps, dropping his is grip on Sam to stride back towards the bar. "Lemme just remind you how well our last meet with someone who'd been talkin' with our dad played out!"

"Oh, just sit your dumb ass down." She rolls her eyes, not flinching for a second in the face of his brother's rage, just taking another swig of her beer as Sam rebalances his laptop bag, closes the distance between he and Dean at a cautious pace. "Do I look like Jim goddamn Murphy to you? Like I'm gonna get one call from your daddy and suddenly lose my damn mind?"

"What'd he say?" Sam asks, cutting off whatever retort Dean had for that one and very likely preventing his brother's untimely death at the hands of a pissed-off Ellen Harvelle in the process.

"Well, first and foremost, that he fucked up back in Blue Earth," Ellen answers, gamely ignoring Dean's sullen grumbles as he flings himself back on his barstool.

"Yeah, you're tellin' us." Dean mutters, taking a wary sip of his beer and squinting at it, like he could see the roofie in it if he tried hard enough.

"Then," Ellen continues, glaring over the bar but continuing anyway, "that he ain't got no one comin' after you, and that he was worried."

"You figure he was possessed or just had a gun to his head?" Dean asks, snorting into his draft.

"_I'm_ _paraphrasing_," Ellen grinds out, very clearly digging for patience as she looks like she'd like nothing more to reach across the bar and pop Dean in the head again.

Sam, for his part, keeps his mouth shut and tries to hide his snort in his beer, which only kind of works and ends with him scrambling for napkins as he slops suds on the bar

"Great. That mean he's comin' after us by himself?" Dean picks up, passing Sam his napkin as Ellen hands him a stack from behind the bar and Sam tries very hard not to feel like a messy six-year-old.

"Seemed more concerned with chasin' leads on the fire at the Roadhouse, but I wouldn't rule it out," Ellen hedges once Sam's finished mopping up puddles of barley and hops. "Kept your 20 out of it, just be on the safe side."

"He find anything?" Sam jumps in. "Anything on Ash's death, what tipped them off?"

"Only that whatever did this took Ash out before they set the fire, which we coulda guessed if they were after whatever you boys had him workin' on," Ellen gusts, heavy look in her eyes. "Now, I'm gonna go out on a limb, go ahead and say what was in that message, whatever you had Ash diggin' after, was worth dyin' for?"

The age and location of every kid with demon blood out there.

Every place Yellow Eyes has been and everywhere he's going to be for the foreseeable future. A roadmap of the Deals he's made, the families he's hurt, and the ones he hasn't yet, the ones out there who they can still save, who could never have to face a life of smoke and cinders, of black eyes and yellow nightmares and an awful, evil, red-soaked future.

All those kids... All those families, those perfectly ordinary families, staring down the barrel of smoke and flames and awful, evil yellow eyes. And this their silver bullet against every one of them awing up in the nightmare that's marred Sam and Dean' whole lives...

Is that worth dying for?

"Yeah," Sam breathes, nodding. "Definitely."

"Well," Ellen starts, "knowin' that and knowin' if I get in touch with your daddy again, I'm gonna give him whatever the hell he needs to get me a lead on the black eyed sons of bitches what burnt my goddamn home to the ground, I'm gonna ask you this: There anything in that message I need to know?"

"Ellen..." Sam starts, only to trail off, look to Dean. It's Ellen - and Ash and Jo and the Roadhouse - but it's their dad, too.

It's Jim all over again and knowing too little and trusting too much. He wants to, god he wants to, but he's wanted to before. He's wanted to and he has and it's all gone wrong, horribly, terribly, up-in-smoke wrong, and he doesn't— He's not sure what the right call here is, not sure it's even his call to make.

And maybe Dean gets it, the doubt, the confusion, gets that Sam wants to trust her more than anything, wants this to be anything but Blue Earth all over again. Maybe he gets that there's too much riding on this, too much depending on it, on them, for Sam to make this call without someone else to chime in. Maybe he gets that if he makes the call, makes it and this goes south, if everything goes wrong, spectacularly wrong, all over again, Sam just isn't sure he can shoulder that guilt on top of everything else.

Sam hopes he gets it. Hopes things aren't so bad, so lost, between them that Dean doesn't get it at least a little, because he can see the shift in him, that split-second steel of Dean's spine as he snags Sam's fumble, takes control, takes command.

"He doesn't know where Sam is," Dean snaps, holding Sam's gaze for a second before his eyes meet's Ellen's. "You wanna use him to get even for them takin' out your place and Ash with it, go a-goddamn-head. God knows the man could use a goddamn hobby, but you say another word to him? You use any of this we got here? He don't get a word of where we are or what we're goddamn doing, you got that? Not if it leads him to Sam. Not again."

Dean's balls his fists up his sides, his face set in harsh, unforgiving lines.

"He had his chance," Dean finishes. "He don't get another one. You wanna play ball? Fine. You want us to square with you still havin' him on your goddamn speed dial? Whatever. But you give him so much a lick as to where we're at, Ellen? You give him so much as half a chance at makin' a move on Sam again?"

"Dean," Sam breaks in, cuts Dean off before the threat can bloom, before he can draw another line in the sand, cross another name off their dwindling list of allies without so much as a second thought. Stops his brother before he takes another step towards cutting out everyone they've ever known or cared about, all in name of protection Sam doesn't even deserve. Because if Dean doesn't have Dad... or Caleb or Jim or Ellen or Bobby... if he doesn't have any of them-if he doesn't have any of them and he doesn't have anything but Sam, Sam who's- who's the cause of all this is the first place and- and-

Sam's not worth this.

He's never been worth this.

"Won't fight you on that one." Ellen nods quietly, a shadow in her eye. "Won't pretend it doesn't do me ease, knowin' you boys are here and he's there. What he was thinkin' in that goddamn church..."

She shakes her head.

"Don't make no nevermind," she says. "Stunt like that? He's gotta earn his place back in any room with you boys in it, far as I'm concerned. So you say he don't know where you are? Well, then he don't know where you goddamn are."

Sam wants to trust her. He wants to trust her so bad, but they've heard this tune before. Heard the same song and dance from Jim before he slammed the locks and sent everything straight to hell, and Sam can see the same catch in Dean's eyes, the same hesitation.

"And Jim Murphy might have told you the same thing," Ellen admits, "might have sworn to the high heavens he'd only tell John what you wanted, that he was for you and about you, all the livelong day. But I'll tell you one thing Jim Murphy won't," Ellen grinds out, taking a long pull of her draft, "_can't_, for all the years he's spent at John's elbow. I'll tell you what your daddy does when he makes a mistake. When he screws a hunt so royally that he's got no way out, no choice but to look facts in the face and admit that he got someone killed or near as."

Ellen drops her glass on the water-stained counter behind the bar with a dull 'thunk'.

"He runs," she bites out. "He turns tail and cuts ties and scampers off like the coward he goddamn is. And I know, 'cause twelve goddamn years ago he showed up on my doorstep, bloodstained and sorry, handed me the keys to Bill's damn RV, and then drove off without a word."

And if Sam wasn't listening hard, hanging on Ellen's every goddamn word before, he sure as hell would be now, because that puts Dad- that would mean he was on the hunt that got Bill Harvelle killed. That left Ellen a widow and- and Dad never said—

"Nothing," Ellen forces out, swallowing hard. "Not a god damn thing, not 'til you boys backed him into it. Now you want a promise that he's not gonna try and find you? I can't make it. Got nothing to give you there. But you want a promise that I am the last person on the the goddamn planet that is gonna make this easy for that stubborn coward daddy of yours?" Ellen meets both of their eyes in turn, slow and steady and every inch of her salt and steel. "Well that I can goddamn give."

She continues, strong and straightforward: "Now, I'm gonna ask you boys again, and you can tell or not as you like. Did Ash give you anything in that email I need to know?

"Tuscaloosa," Sam says before Dean can open his mouth. "The demon's gonna be in Tuscaloosa."

"Well," Ellen nods, "Let's get you boys fed and on the road, then. I'll swing by Sioux Falls, get the cavalry's cranky ass caught up and meet you there."

"Ellen—" Dean protests.

"Just 'cause this is you boys' fight," she interrupts, "don't mean it's _just_ your fight. Sure as hell don't mean you gotta face it alone. Now you make you peace with that and tell me how you like your burgers done."

Sam's protests that they really need to get on the road get pretty loudly shouted down by Dean, Ellen and Proprietor Peggy in turn, something he really regrets when she re-emerges from the belly of the bar bearing slightly-singed sandwiches and just-this-side-of-cold-in-the-center fries.

No one lingers over lunch.

"Ellen, we didn't," Sam starts as he and Ellen begin cleaning up the table and his brother oh-so-fortuitously remembers he needs to go to the bathroom right this instant. "We didn't know about our dad. What he and your husband…"

"Honey, I know you didn't." Ellen smiles at him, soft and steady as she rinses glasses. "How could you've?"

"I'm sorry." Sam apologizes as he gathers up straggling bottles of ketchup and mustard. "Sorry he… Sorry."

"My Bill would have liked you." Ellen smiles, plucking the condiments out of his hands and slotting them into their places at the wait station. "Your brother, too. Woulda gotten a kick outta watchin' you two drive Josie up the wall."

"You never blamed him? Our dad?" Sam asks softly, not quite knowing why, but needing to know all the same.

"Maybe a little, maybe at first," Ellen admits with a nod, coming around the bar to help I'm slot chairs back into place around the warped, wobbly round wooden tables, "but you know as well as I do, Sam. That's just loss."

"And after?" Sam ventures, eyes flicking up to hers for a second before darting back down to the table, brushing at stray sprinkles of salt lingering on the surface.

"I should wish it was another hunter there with Bill?" Ellen asks, busying herself with going back around the bar and rummaging beneath the sink. "Daniel? Bobby? One of Bill's family? One of mine? I should wish he was alone, leavin' me worryin' and wondering at the Roadhouse with Josie? I should wish I was there with him? That we left our baby girl all alone?"

She shakes her head softly, coming back around the bar and handing him a damp rag to help her wipe down the table with.

"You can't do that, Sam. Can't lose yourself in maybe like that. What happened, happened. I could live with the hurt. John couldn't. From what I hear tell, it wasn't the first time."

"Yeah," Sam snorts, half losing himself in slow, steady passes of rag over ribbed, rippling wood grain. "Family tradition."

And it's sad how true that is, how true it keeps being as they keep going forward, keep writing more of their stories and learning more of their mom and keep running, keep chasing after this demon, always racing, always running, but never looking back.

Little Mary who would never go near her parents' hose after their death at Yellow Eye hands, giving everything, everything she had and more to just make it all go away, make it all stop.

Dad putting Lawrence in his rear view after the fire and never looking back.

Sam leaving for Stanford. The fight between Sam and Dean and those two years they lost, that they almost ended everything on before Covington, before Louisiana and losing Dean and getting him back and another fire, another sweet, precious perfect life lost, burned up and blasted away, and if you asked Sam to go back, asked him to see those people, to go to those places to walk down those streets and breathe that same air, names, faces, bricks, mortar, _oxygen_ going in sour, coming out wrong, all because last time it was with her, last time she was here, smiling and laughing and loving and alive, and now she's- she's—

"Bobby told me about the fire back in California," Ellen offers, gently taking the rag back when he's long since finished wiping down the table. "Sam, it wasn't—"

"Please don't, Ellen," Sam begs, his voice unabashedly breaking on her name, shattering because Jess is gone. She is gone and she's been gone and she'll always be gone. It's been a year. A year without her smile, her voice in his ear or her hands at his waist or her legs tangling with his under the covers, hair tangling around them both, a glinting, golden hurricane as they come down, exhausted and panting, sleepy and sated, Jess bursting into a riot of giggles when he goes to brush her hair out of his face and just gets his hand stuck instead.

She wouldn't even recognize him now.

Would have no idea what to do with the man, the monster, he's become. The blood on his hands and in his veins, the blackness crawling up and creeping inside him and what he did to Dean...

God, she wouldn't recognize him, and he wouldn't want her to, couldn't stand if she connected the person he was with the nightmare he's become, and it's Jess and Dean and Dean and Jess, all he's ever had and all he's ever wanted, and he failed them, let them both down _so hard_.

"Looks like that ball of sunshine brother of yours is about ready to go," Ellen remarks, pulling him from his thoughts as Dean stalks out of the bathroom.

"Yeah," Sam nods, subtly-but-probably-not-subtly scrubbing at his face, trying to get rid of the he evidence before Dean sees.

"You gonna be alright?" Ellen asks, giving him a quick nod as an all-clear.

"I'm…" Sam stumbles. He gropes for something other than 'Probably not, considering the circumstances.'

"I hope so," he settles, giving Ellen a sad, summoned half-smile and a weak shrug as Dean makes his way over.

"Me too, sweetie," she agrees, straightening the creases in his shirt with a couple of smart tugs and then completely undoing her hard work by giving him a sympathetic squeeze on the shoulder.

Sam figures, as they say their goodbyes and make their way out into the parking lot, that it's Ellen's way of saying "I want you to know I care about you, but, because we are not currently staring death in the face, am not going to ruin your tough-as-nails hunter rep by actually hugging you."

"You two look after one another," she gruffs, giving them a nod as they reach their respective cars. "Don't forget to call and check in."

"Yes, ma'am," they answer in unison, and Ellen cracks half a grin at that, keeps it as she slides into the cracked, creaking driver's seat of the Chevelle, pulls out of the lot and off into the midday sun, leaving them alone against the Impala, their own stretch of highway yawning long and lonely before them.

"Let's get a move on, then," Dean grumbles as he throws himself in the driver's seat.

The terse finality of the words, the tight, tense line of his brother's shoulders as he cranks the engine and pulls out into the weathered blacktop, make it painfully clear that Dean's not in the talking mood, not about Ellen still talking to their dad, not about Dad being on the hunt that killed Bill Harvelle all those years ago, not about Ash's last message or what happened this morning or last night or the dark, awful secret hiding in his eyes.

There's nothing Sam can say. Nothing that won't end up in another shredding, stinging, salt-in-the-wound exchange of everything they aren't saying to each other, significant silence warring with weighted words in their stupid, stubborn secret-based tug of war.

Because Dean's not telling him something, and Sam doesn't know what it is, all he knows is that it's big and that Dean hates what Sam is doing and Sam hates what Sam is doing and they both hate living with the only way there is to make their lives liveable, and there's nothing Sam can do.

Nothing he can do or say to make Dean tell him, to make him not hate Sam for this, but better his brother hate him for this than hate him for something worse, If the first step to living with all of this is sitting in the front seat silent, Salinger clicking through the tape deck, trying and failing to cut through the space between them, heavy and mined with everything that's been said and done and meant but not meant at all, and the hundred thousand other things that they'll never say, not in a hundred lifetimes, but still wield and wound with like the sharpest, cruelest knives… If this is it, if this is all they're left with, all that's survived the break, Sam's merciless excision of everything he's let seep, sick and sour between them, then that's...

Well, that's just another thing Sam is going to have to live with, to atone for, to fix.

Because this? Right now? It's awkward and awful, all this stilted, strangled, stranding distance. All this normal Sam dredged up and shoved between them, used to fill the spaces between 'he' and 'me' in the wake of cutting away anything and everything that could ever, _ever_ lead to his taking advantage of- of fucking _assaulting_ Dean again, under any circumstances, and it's what they need, what's right.

This is what's right and what's normal and despite that, despite _all of that_, Sam can't help but want- want _everything_, fingers in his hair and Dean beneath his hands and _home_, gun smoked and leather-wrapped, here and alive and and all around him, holding and helping and taking, just for a second, the weight of birth and blood and destiny.

But he can't. They can't, and he has to remind himself, over and over again, that this has to happen, that this is for the best.

This is for Dean, and it's for the best.

He settles into the passenger seat, elbow propped on the window as Holden Caulfield loses his foils on the subway and Sam digs in for the long haul.


	78. Chapter 78

Iowa falls away under the wheels of the Impala, scrubland and fields and sparse, concrete knuckles of fill ups and strips malls, broken every now and again by skirting, stretching spits of suburb and twisting, tangling knots of city, tripping and falling through the Hawkeye State to catch on the border of Illinois and Missouri, following the Mighty Mississippi down as the sun falls and fades, dips beneath the horizon in fiery ruin a few hours before they reach a spit of scrub and cracked highway that a faded, falling sign on the side of the road says is Jackson, but Sam is pretty sure is nothing more than another faint, forgettable fold on the map.

"Pull off for some grub?" Dean shoots a glance across the seat at Sam, thumbing down Caulfield's love of digression in favor of his own as he breaks two states worth of silence.

"I'm not hungry," Sam mumbles, running his thumb along a seam in the armrest instead of looking up, choosing dusty stitches and black upholstery in favor of facing the fact that pulling off means stopping, stopping and eating and talking and setting in for the night and two queen beds in some anonymous motel in this forgotten fold of highway, two beds and one choice and Dean, keeping secrets and hating him no matter what he decides and knowing it has to happen and wanting it fight over it are two completely different things, and Dean's—

He's been some shade of mad at Sam all day now. Sam can't help but wish they could just keep driving, the twisting ribbon of asphalt playing out before them, the quiet, the humming exhale of the engine, and the constant, clicking heartbeat of the tape deck eating up the silence, the strain, and letting Sam pretend, just for a little, that he has a brother again.

"Not hungry? Yeah, no," Dean dismisses. "You left breakfast splattered across Bobby's counter, picked at lunch, and you know what? Fine. I get it."

He whips the Impala onto the Jackson exit and glares across the wheel at Sam.

"You wanna be pie and picket fences normal? Ride your Leave It To Beaver kick straight on to ditching out on me again?" Dean snaps, giving Sam the first taste of what's been wheeling through his brother's head since Iowa. "But hell if I'm gonna sit back and let you man-pain-orexia your way into an early goddamn grave."

And he's got it all wrong, missing the point by a mile as he fumes in the driver's seat, but it's the most Dean's given him in hours, this first, bitter-cold blast of his brother's resentment. It's something, something better than stubborn denial or sullen, searing silence, so Sam'll take it, buckle down and bear through and just- just swallow the pill, no matter how wrong and raw and razor-edged it may be.

Because it might be awful, might be awful and painful and torture, sitting here on the other side of this wall he's shored up between he and Dean, all the things he wants but can't have taunting him from the other side, miles apart for all that they're inches away, but it's necessary, the imaginary bricks and boards the only thing standing between Sam and the monster he would do anything to keep from becoming.

To keep from letting them become.

So he's glad Dean's snapping at him from the driver's seat. Glad he's growling his way through some shade of the same old mother bear routine as always,s because it's progress, the first step towards Dean accepting this, this distance that has to - absolutely _has to_ - become their new normal.

Sam'll swallow Dean's anger, the rage and resentment and anything else Dean has to throw at him. Anything else he thinks Sam deserves.

No matter what it is, he wouldn't be wrong.

"You wanna be normal civvies with this awkward, interpersonal crap?" Dean continues, railing as they truck down the abandoned backroads bleeding into Jackson. "Fine. We can meet up later at the goddamn health club, take a fricken yoga class and get some soy goddamn lattes. Discuss, I don't know, mortgages and tofurkey or some shit, but before all that, you're gonna stop looking like it's goddamn torture to sit next to me, you're gonna park your overgrown goddamn ass down in whatever dive's still dishin' out at this hour, and you're having a real goddamn meal if I have cram it down your throat myself. Got it?"

"Dean…" Sam starts, because of course. Of course he couldn't be so goddamn lucky as to have Dean just sulk his way into acceptance. Of course he had luck out and get the only sibling on the planet who would consider it a personal insult to take a few steps back after waking up to being sexually assaulted by your hellspawn younger brother.

"I don't—" Dean interrupts, then breaks off. "You know what? No. I do. I do want to goddamn talk about this, but not now. Now while I'm tired and hungry and goddamn pissed."

Dean gestures violently to the space between them,

"We're talking about this, Sam. We are definitely fucking talking about this, but you wanna ratchet this up from unpleasant to total fucking nightmare by doing it while I'm starved, achy, and armed? Be my guest, Sammy. Be my guest."

"I wasn't gonna say that," Sam snaps as Dean snorts in the driver's seat.

"Sure you weren't." Dean nods, face saying he clearly doesn't believe Sam louder than words ever could.

"Dean," Sam persists, because he has to and Dean's not listening and Sam's _not_ wrong on this.

He's not wrong, and he's not backing down. Dean might be fighting tooth and nail on relinquishing control of the Denial Train as he rockets the right towards Repeat of This Morning Station, but this is one fight he's not gonna win.

"Tractors," Dean interrupts him.

He whips the Impala into a parking spot on High Street in front of a dingy, red and green awninged restaurant, white lettering on the windowed storefront clarifying that this is, more specifically, 'Tractors Classic American Grill.' No apostrophe.

"Perfect," his brother nods, killing the engine and pocketing the keys.

Sam sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face as he tips his head back against the seat, because Dean's in an awful goddamn mood, and this is _before_ they fight about this morning and today and tonight and everything, and god, Sam is just so _tired_.

"Give up on it, Sammy," Dean says, getting out of the car and looking down at him expectantly. "We're doing this? Having girly boundaries argument part two? We're both eating first. You especially."

"Great," Sam grumbles, giving in and getting out and following Dean into the restaurant, less because he actually wants to and more because he just doesn't feel like fighting anymore. "Another fun-filled meal of you being pissed at me and roadkill someone slapped on a bun."

"This is a classy joint, Sammy." Dean grins as they walk through the door. "Bet they could toss a salad together for you."

And if Dean even realizes the absolutely _galling_ pun he just made, Sam doesn't notice, because they have walked into what it is is the most... _enthusiastically_ tractor-themed establishment Sam has ever, or likely _will_ ever, encountered.

It's just... _Wow_.

There are tractor parts hung on the walls. Little toy tractors scattered behind the bar. Tractor schematics framed behind glass and lovingly grouped photos of tractors hung up above the tables against on wall, handwritten names scrawled in the corners or tacked to the bottom of the frame which could either be identifying the owner or the machinery in question, but with no indication as to which.

There's even, lest one forget exactly where one is and what that place is single-mindedly about, 'TRACTORS' painted in giant, glaring white capitals along the length and breadth of the wall opposite the bar which, just, who wakes up one day and says, "You know what restaurants could use a little more of? _Tractors_."

"This place is awesome," Dean laughs, striding through the nearly-empty dive to grab them a booth against the far wall.

Well, okay, but who _else?_

"Salads." Dean smirks, tossing Sam a menu and waving his own illustratively as Sam sits down. "Told ya."

"Yeah, right between the Massive Ferguson with Tractor Sauce and the Tractor's Dirt Clod Brownie," Sam notes, laughing a little to himself despite everything, because how do they even _find_ these places?

It even has wi-fi, he notes, flipping through the menu and half-wishing he'd brought his laptop in. Seriously, does Dean actually have a chip?

"Hey, that Ferguson Burger looks pretty good," Dean tosses back. "Whatd'ya think, Sammy? Half a pound of beef, lettuce, tomatoes, Tractor Sauce, and all the cheese you could want?"

"I think if you wanted to keel over at thirty from a heart attack," Sam mutters, "just downing straight Crisco'd be easier. And less messy."

He wrinkles his nose at a diner a few table over setting into what he's guessing is a Ferguson, very nearly alive and in the flesh.

It's... drippy.

"Got a point," Dean admits, watching the guy try and fail to maneuver that much sauce and burger without a few additional hands and maybe a forklift. "Hey, they got a bison burger. Bison's healthy, right?"

"Not when you're eating a third a pound of it on a butter-soaked bun slathered in mayo." Sam snorts despite himself, loving and hating how simple it is, how easy they can just slip back into quips and comebacks, long, lazy conversations about nothing as they ramble across the country, slipping in and out of diners and dives and why can't it just be like this? Why does Dean have to fight him on every goddamn thing? Why won't he just let them fix things so they can have them like this all the time?

"It's low fat mayo," Dean defends as Sam's mood slips and sours all over again.

"Low fat is just code for high sugar, Dean," Sam tosses back, signaling a waitress shortly.

"You're... code for high sugar," Dean grumbles, but it falls flat. Sam doesn't taking the opening to rib Dean, who just settles for kicking at Sam under the table, pasted-on half grin souring when Sam immediately untangles their feet, straightens in the booth when their waitress makes her way over.

"Ya'll ready to order?" she chirps brightly. The tractor-shaped name tag pinned to her navy blue Tractors tee lists her name as 'Tina.'

"Yeah," Dean picks up, shrugging off 'Sulking at Sam' in favor of 'Smirky and Smiling' for all that Tina can't be a day over sixteen. "Couple of whatever you've got on draft, a Red Belly, and what's it gonna be for you, Sammy?"

"Just the soup and salad, please," he tells Tina. "Low-fat dressing, if you've got it."

"Thought low fat just meant high sugar, Sammy," Dean grins from across the table as she flits back to the kitchen.

"Like you've got any room to talk, Red Belly," Sam can't help but toss back, play the game, even though it's only gonna end up with them fighting-but-not-fighting again, running along just fine, just like they always have, right up until they run head-first into everything that's been tied up and tangled between them since they woke up this morning.

"It's open faced," Dean grins. "Less bread, 'cause bread makes you fat."

"No, half-pound burgers topped with chili and cheese make you fat," Sam contradicts, focuses on Dean, tossing words in the air like firecrackers, tugged off from red paper clusters and touched to his lighter and thrown on the fly, filling the air with light and sound for one blink-and-you'll-miss-it second of Fourth of July, of being dragged away from the dim, dirty was and will be around them for one hot, heady flick of here-and-now.

"Nah, that doesn't sound right," Dean dismisses with grin, lining up a sugar packet like a paper football and flicking it at Sam's head. "Where's the science, Sammy?"

"It's the First Law of Thermodynamics, Dean!" Sam half-laughs, batting the sugar packet away to plunk against the framed lithograph touting 'PLOWS' in sprawling, swirling curlicued letters over his shoulder. "Burgers in, belly out."

"Just more to love, right, Sammy?" Dean jokes, his grin falling off when Sam meets it with a glare. "What, I can't even-? _Seriously_?"

They stare at each other for a tight, silent moment.

"You're full of shit, you know that?" Dean demands, and apparently this is happening now. This is as long as this fight'll wait.

"Why is that, Dean?" Sam asks, slow and careful, ready for the ax to fall, the lash to strike, willing to accept his brother's anger, his frustration, his resentment, everything.

Anything but hurting him again.

"Because you're going on and on about normal?" Dean challenges. "Realigning our whole damn lives to accommodate the fallout from your latest little freak out, when you don't know shit about what the hell _normal_ even is."

"_Excuse_ me? I—"

"Never had any brother but me," Dean interrupts. "Never lived any life but this one. Never known anything but what we got right here. Now, you wanna step back 'cause you don't want something like this morning to happen again? Fine. 'S your choice to make. But don't bullshit me about normal and regular and average when that's the last damn thing we have any fucking experience with, and don't pretend you're doing this for anyone else but goddamn you."

"I am not, Dean," Sam forces out, because like _hell_ this is for him. Like hell this is anything close to what he likes or wants and that's- that's the _problem_. That's what's making this like pulling teeth, the fact that he wants the exact opposite thing of what he should have and what he should do, and the fact that the things he wants and the things he can have are miles apart and mutually exclusive to boot and—

"Bull," Dean cuts in. "Only two of us here, Sam, and I think this is a hell of a lot of stupid."

"Well, the other one of us, the one of us not _ass-deep in denial_," Sam throws back, "knows that it's _not_, and if—"

"Red Belly and a soup and salad combo?" Tina chirps, sliding plates in front of them and setting down beers with a bright smile and sunny, studiously-not-curious grin that says she was listening to, if not their whole damn conversation, at least the last part of it.

To be fair, Sam had gotten a bit... _vehement_ with that last part.

Especially the ass-deep bits.

"Y'all need anything else?" she asks brightly.

"We're good, thanks," Sam answers, feeling the flush creep up his neck as he gets rid of Tractor Tina and shoots Dean, already digging into his Red Belly with fervor, a sharp 'We'll talk about this in the car' glare.

Dean, for his part, just answers with a smirk and an assholish quirk of his eyebrows, equal parts 'Looking forward to it' and 'Fuck you, buddy.'


	79. Chapter 79

Dinner is... tense, to say the least. Sam would love to say it's the first time he's sat through a meal counting to ten over and over again in his head just to keep from stabbing Dean with a fork but it's not.

It does crack the top ten, though. Maybe even the top five if the the sick, sullen silence that sticks with them like a storm cloud as they troll the backroads of Jackson for a motel is anything to go by.

Dean pulls off at the first place they come across, a dim, non-committal grey setup whose cracked, flickering sign lists it as the Town House Inn, and even if this isn't exactly what Sam would call a either a town or a house, he's not gonna nitpick about it, not if it gets him out of the front seat and away from this thick, unsubtle silence, every inhale from the driver's side a bomb about to go off, a blow just barely checked, and getting inside, getting a room and beds and having to— Well, actually having to _have_ this fight they've been working up to all damn day? It's not something Sam's looking forward to, not by a long shot, but- but it's something. Anything.

Not matter what it is, it's gotta be better than this.

Of course, his thinking that lasts just about as long as it takes them to pull up and make their way into the office.

"Sorry, boys, we just let out our last double an hour ago," the aged proprietor smacks through a generous wad of Juicy Fruit. "Only got kings left."

"Seriously?" Sam nearly explodes, because of course, of course he couldn't be so lucky as for this crappy motel to have just as many beds per room as literally _every_ crappy motel they have stayed at _ever_.

Of course, just... of course.

He's Sam Winchester. He should it's know by now that whatever he wants, the universe is gonna give him the exact damn opposite.

"They gots fold-out couches in 'em, though," the man offers, unwrapping another stick and laconically jabbing it in his mouth. "You wanna give it a try."

"Are there any other—" Sam starts to ask, only for Dean to cut him off, edging ever-so-slightly in front of him at the counter.

"You tryin' to quit?" his brother asks, nodding at the gum wrappers scattered around the innkeep at his desk.

"On day three." The man nods, fingering another pack of Juicy Fruit with a sour look. "Seems more trouble than it's worth, you ask me, but the wife's gonna give me hell I start up again."

"Preaching to the choir, buddy." Dean snorts, digging out a credit card with someone else's name on it and slapping it on the counter.

"Dean," Sam protests.

"We'll take a king," his brother cuts him off, and Sam thinks 'Awesome. Fucking _Awesome_.'

Of course, it's not awesome.

It is not awesome to walk into the sole available room of the Town House Inn and just sort of have to freeze. To take in the one bed and the tiny couch and the ancient TV and suddenly realize how _small _all of these places are, all of these motels and hotels and motor lodges they've spent their lives filtering through. To realize how, no matter where Sam goes in this crabbed, cramped, crappy excuse for a room, Dean is always gonna be right there, and he can hear everything and see everything and no matter where Sam goes, no matter what he does, Dean is gonna be there and it- goddamn it, it would have been the best feeling in the world yesterday, the very best, but now?

Now it's the worst, a constant goddamn reminder that Dean is right there, and he hates Sam for what he did and what he might do and what he's trying to do to fix it all and beneath all of that, beneath everything, there's still something his brother isn't telling him, still some secret awful enough to stay hidden, to sink down deep and stay buried after 'demon blood' and 'Mom's a hunter' and- and _everything_.

And when Dean comes in behind him, finishes up parking the Impala and hauling in the last of their things from the back, the first, awkward, awful hiccup hits, because this is the part where they toss their bags on the bed closest to the door. This is the part where they tacitly ignore the fact that they could be normal, be healthy, have that solid, socially acceptable distance between them, but choose not to.

Choose to be themselves instead.

Except that can't happen anymore, mostly because it ends up with Sam violating Dean in his sleep, but just a little bit because his stupid, stubborn, pig-headed brother went and got the only motel room in the history of all crappy motel rooms _ever_ without two goddamn beds in it which, thanks, Dean. Thanks _so much_.

Dean, for his part, just pauses at the threshold, catches himself, and then tosses their crap on the faded, fraying luggage stand in the corner, the one they never, ever use because it's always too goddamn small for anything, making up for this limitation of dimension by purposefully, pain-in-the-assfully putting Sam's stuff on bottom, then his, then their weapons in a giant, duffle-comprised Leaning Tower of Pisa made up of plaid and ammo.

Because Sam's brother might be a dick, but he's a dick with _priorities_.

"There are other motel rooms in this crappy town, Dean." Sam sighs, stalking over to the luggage rack to excavate his bag.

"I'm not sure that's true," Dean tosses back idly, jabbing experimentally at the coffee maker perched on the water-stained dresser and picking up the laminated card announcing what skeezy skin flicks are currently playing on pay-per-view.

"Listen, you've made your point, okay?" Sam bursts out, giving up on getting his bag out without toppling the whole damn thing over. "You think I'm being stupid about this."

"No," Dean corrects, dropping the pay-per-view card back on the dresser with a plasticky 'thwap'. "I think you're being a hysterical girl and overreacting—"

"No, I am not!" Sam protests, rounding on his brother.

"Bullshit," Dean dismisses.

"I am not overreacting, Dean!" Sam fires back. "You're- you're _under_reacting!

"That's not even a thing." Dean snorts, looking at Sam like _he's_ the one being completely stupid about this.

"Apparently it is! You're just- you're- you're doing what you always do," Sam rants. "You just sit alone with your fingers in your ears going 'What are you talking about, Sam? It's _fine,_' except it's _not_ fine, Dean! It's _never_ fine!"

"Oh, so something not fine happens, we gotta freak out and make everything _more_ fucked up?" Dean challenges. "You have a good goddamn day today, Sammy? Solve any of the world's problems by sitting in your little emo corner, really doubling down on the man-pain and self loathing?"

"You're saying that to me? Really?" Sam scoffs incredulously. "_You're_ saying that to me?"

"What?" Dean punches back, daring Sam to touch that one with a ten foot fucking pole. "You don't want it to happen again, just don't let it happen again."

"That's what I'm trying to do, Dean!" Sam cries.

"What, by treating me like I have the plague? Walkin' around all goddamn day lookin' like your dog fucking died?" Dean snaps. "It was _one time_, Sam. One goddamn time."

"It was _not_ one goddamn time, and you _know_ it," Sam accuses, drilling a finger into Dean's chest. "What happened in Manning? Bobby's shower? This morning was just—"

"Whatever," Dean cuts him off, slapping Sam's hand aside. "Change your fucking tampon, and get over it."

"Okay, a) fuck you," Sam snaps, "and b) I can't just get over it! Sorry, but I'm not as adept as you are at aggressively not feeling things I don't wanna feel."

"Hey, I feel shit all the time," Dean tosses back. "I'm feeling shit right now. Feelin' pretty annoyed, slightly hungry."

"You just ate, Dean!" Sam explodes, which is not even the point. "You know what? _No_. I am not doing this."

"Great, don't do it," Dean sneers. "It's Sammy's time of the month, gotta make everyone miserable just 'cause he feels real bad about somethin' _else_."

"Go ahead," Sam challenges, because he always does this, he _always_ does this. "Call me a girl in as many ways you want, Dean, but I am not letting you ignore this."

"I'm not ignoring it, Sam," Dean snarls. "I'm moving the fuck on, which is what you do when one thing happened and it's not gonna happen again. If this is supposed to go how you want it to go, then you should be doing what the fuck I'm doing, not lingering over it like some sort of weepy girl."

God, he's so stupid and stubborn, and if Sam didn't love him so much, he would _hate_ him.

"You say we get over it and never let it happen again," Dean presses. "So why aren't you getting over it and never letting it happen again? You wanna move on so bad, then why do you have such a problem with me moving on?"

"Because you're not moving on; you're ignoring it, Dean!" Sam tosses back.

"I'm not ignoring it," Dean declares. "You just can't get over it."

"No, no, no," Sam argues, because he knows that look in Dean's eye, that way he sets his jaw when he thinks he's got an argument locked, that the book is closed. "Bullshit, Dean. Total bullshit. Whatever happened, there's something you're not telling me."

Dean opens his mouth to argue, but Sam keeps going, railroading right over him.

"There is something," he says. "I _know_ there is, and if you want to ignore it? You want to keep whatever the hell it is under a goddamn bushel basket? Fine. That's your right. God knows I can't stop you. But don't tell me it's fine, and don't act like this is okay, and don't pretend that _either_ of us is handling this well. If you're gonna lie to me, lie to me."

He takes a deep breath, scrubs a hand through his hair as he paces away from Dean on the worn motel carpet.

"But don't lie to me about this," he breathes, worn and weary, quiet but still deafening in this bare, tiny room. "Don't lie to me about this being anything other than what it fucking is."

"And what's that, Sammy?" Dean rasps behind him. He's closed the distance between them on instinct, and no matter what Sam does, this happens. It always happens.

It's always one step forward and two steps back, always him trying, trying and failing, to outrun what he knows and won't admit and can't escape, and no matter what he does, it always comes back to this, always.

The big fucking I.

And God, you know what? Sam can't keep lying to himself anymore. Can't keep pretending that there's anything he should have done but this the second he laid a hand on Dean. Can't do anything but turn towards his brother, take those last few steps to destroy the distance between them, shoved hot and close and in Dean's orbit like always. Always has and always was and always thought he would be.

And never should have been in the first place.

And it's hot green eyes and firecracker freckles, tanned skin and warm, worn leather and those damn Marlboros Dean sneaks when Sam's not around to slap them out from between his fingers, and this is it, this is what he should have done all along. What he's been heading toward and running from and was too scared, too stupid to do until now.

"Tuscaloosa's about six hours out," he chokes, words fighting him as he shoves them out, eyes watering as he snags the keys from Dean's jacket, ignores the heat of his brother's side through the lining, the long, lethal line of the Colt safe and secret in the inside pocket.

He forces the keys between Dean's fingers, closes them, numb and uncomprehending, around the ring.

"My laptop's got all Ash's stuff on it," Sam continues. "That should get you Yellow Eyes, the family—"

"What?" Dean mumbles, dumbstruck, and Sam should pull back, he should, but this is his last chance, his very last, to take in road dust and rock salt, cheap detergent and old leather and the swirling, spiking silver arcs over Dean's pulse, stories spelled out in scars of everything they were, everything they could have been.

Everything they'll never be.

"Wait, what?" Dean repeats, his fingers tightening convulsively around the keys as he jerks back, glares at the keys and Sam in rapid, uncomprehending succession.

"Dean, you have to—" Sam starts, but Dean doesn't let him get far, cuts him off in a whirl of furious motion.

"The hell I have to," he snarls, wheeling back to spike the keys into Sam's chest and then stepping in after them, getting up close and in Sam's face as he fumes, the place where the keys hit throbbing, burning like a brand. "Are you high? I mean, have you gone totally and completely out of your damn mind? Leaving? Over this? When we got fifteen different kinds of hell riding out asses?"

"I'm serious, Dean!" Sam spits out, not giving an inch as he glares back at Dean, frustrated and furious and seconds away from just, just _shaking_ Dean, shaking him until he realizes that this is happening. Somehow or someway, this _has to happen_. "I don't know how many ways I gotta say it, but I am not goddamn sleep-fucking you again!"

"What, one awkward handjob and you're gonna ditch me?" Dean spits out, sneers in Sam's face as he refuses to back down, stubborn and solid and the same, just the same as always. "Really. Man, thank god that dream wasn't about oral, or you mighta hot-wired the car and left me on the side of the goddamn road somewhere."

"Stop trying to make this into a joke, Dean," Sam snaps, gritting his teeth against the flush he feels rising, the shame and humiliation, the deep, dark tug he feels deep inside at the thought of being on his knees in front of Dean, mouth full, jaw working and those same, strong calloused fingers, tangled and twisting in his hair.

He shoves it down, shoves it all the fuck down.

"We are way the fuck past that," he grinds out.

"No, what we're way the fuck past is you using every goddamn thing as an excuse to ditch out on your family," Dean throws back, going back to the book, tossing the same, tired litany at Sam he's heard a hundred times over and a hundred times again.

"That again," Sam huffs out against a sad, bitter laugh, because is this it? Are they really gonna end it all on the same damn fight that led to Stanford? The same damn words that started it all, dredged up and spit out and spoken, word for word and not remotely what this, what any of this, is about.

"Yeah, that again," Dean snaps, jaw tight, and Sam knows he knows. Knows they both know that this is the only script they've got for leaving. That digging deep into old wounds is the only way he'll have something to say, anything to say. Anything but the truth.

Anything but the awful inescapable fact that Sam is right. He's right, and he's wrong, and if he had any decency in him, any shred of common sense, he'd be out in the parking lot right now, taking Dean's refusal to leave as his cue to go.

"It's one thing that happened one time," Dean murmurs, catches the cuff of Sam's sleeve as the crest of their argument breaks and crashes in the silence of the motel room like a wave, nothing left but swirling sand and stubborn suds and the dull, monotonous hum of the A/C. "Join the rest of the crowd and get over it."

"Dean, normal—" Sam tries, tries but fails, because it's this again, just like he always knew it would be. Dean refusing to leave and Sam not being able to just move, to step back and shove off and hot-wire the nearest piece of shit in the parking lot that's not the Impala, that's not the world in a long black body, four wheels and a chassis and a lifetime of memories and Dean, suntanned and smiling and the one thing, the one thing, he just can't back away from.

Not even when he should. Not even when it's as good as damning them both to- to a lifetime of this, and it's wrong and it's right and it's not- it's nowhere near-

"Fuck. Normal," Dean grits out, cutting him off and locking his fingers around Sam's wrist, a hot iron band shoving aside his sleeve and searing over the scar on his arm, and goddammit if that's not their fucking motto at this point. "Just trust that if it freaked you out that much, it won't fucking happen again."

"How do you know that, Dean?" Sam demands.

He watches his brother's mouth twists with frustration, grip on Sam's wrist tightening and free hand clenching, raised, poised, and if he hit him, hauled off and just clocked Sam clean in the mouth, Sam'd deserve it. He would. But whatever's in Dean that has him clenching his hand, drawing up a blow that never lands falls, fails as his fist loosens, crashes and catches on Sam's collar, rough, work-worn fingers fisting, twisting as Dean catches himself, and he doesn't say a word. Doesn't say anything.

But he doesn't let Sam go, either.

"How can you possibly know that?" Sam repeats, soft and ragged as Dean holds tight and refuses to let go, gravity drawing, dragging them in like always, and they're too close, they're always too close, plaid and leather and fingers in his hair and Dean, breath hot and huffing, ghosts here and gone against his jaw, his pulse. And this, right here?

This is why Sam can't believe him. Can't trust that this'll all just go away because big brother says so, because it's here. It's here, right here beneath his fingers, and Sam can't- can't, _won't_, but he _wants_ to. Wants everything he can't want, shouldn't want, every bit as much as he wants to believe Dean.

He just so tired of all this. He's so tired.

"I won't let it," Dean swears, arms around shoulders and fingers in hair as he says everything Sam wants to hear, needs to hear. "Promise."

"God, if I could just believe that," Sam practically begs, gives in just that little bit as he sags forward that last half-breath, head tipping against Dean, and this is everything he wants, everything he can't have, but it's his brother, too. It's Dean, promising to make it all right, to make it all better, and he can have this much, can't he? Just this much?

"You can, Sammy," Dean murmurs, nodding against him. "You can."

"Dean," Sam gets out, and he doesn't know anymore. He doesn't care, because it's hair in fingers and fists in collars, and he's been missing this all day, doesn't know how the hell he got through without it, and Dean is matching him, holding him just as tight and digging in just as deep and for whatever it's worth, for whatever Sam is signing away by refusing to cut and run now, at least, at the very least, Dean is in this with him.

Dean is here with him.

"It's okay, Sammy," Dean breathes into his collar, breath harsh, hunted ins and outs. "It's okay. I got you."

Sam doesn't say anything. Doesn't have to, just burrows deeper into his brother's arms. Deeper into everything he can have, everything in his life that's safe and good and worth it, so damn worth it, and shoves the rest of the world, the rest of himself, away, just takes everything that's after them and awful in him and locks it away because this, god this—

This is worth it. This is fucking worth it.


	80. Chapter 80

Sam doesn't know how long they stay wrapped around each other, caught up in a tangle of limbs and fists in hair and mingled breaths, in _family _and _brother _and _home _and something else, something _more_, something familiar and dizzying and terrifyingly. He can feel the strain from Dean's too-tight grip, feels his own arms starting to cramp up, feels the moment stretches on too long, well past when they should be untangling their limbs with a round of manly shoulder claps and awkward throat clearing. Sam knows he should end it, should pull away, reestablish that awful, necessary distance, but he just can't, not yet, and Dean's not showing any signs of letting go, either.

The moment keeps stretching on, getting thinner, and one of them has to do something, to say _something_, and—

Dean's stomach rumbles loudly.

There's a long, silent pause, and then Dean starts snickering into Sam's shoulder. Sam pulls back, laughing helplessly, the moment effectively ruined.

"I told you I was hungry," Dean defends with a grin.

Sam presses a hand to his forehead, trying unsuccessfully to smother a smile of his own.

"_How_? How can you _possibly_ still be hungry?"

"Hey, I'm a growing boy, Sammy!"

"You're _ridiculous_." Sam shakes his head despairingly.

Dean shrugs easily.

"Screw it," he says. "I'm ordering delivery. What do you think, hot wings or cinnamon bread? Or hot wings _and _cinnamon bread?"

"Dean, you can't eat hot wings _and_ cinnamon bread!" Sam protests. "You'd puke! I'd puke _watching you_."

"Then close your eyes," Dean says flippantly, thumbing through the yellow pages.

Sam watches him silently. He works his knuckles absentmindedly against the seam of his jeans. The relief he'd felt at being back in Dean's arms is already beginning to dissipate and make room for an all too familiar feeling of dread creeping slowly back into the quiet space between them. He clears his throat, walking over to the luggage rack and begging another attempt to extricate his bag from under Dean's carefully balanced tower of crap.

"Sam, do I want garlic bread or cinnamon bread?" his brother muses aloud, oblivious to the shift in Sam's mood and having apparently already forgotten his earlier deceleration that 'bread makes you fat.' "Ooh, or garlic _knots_!"

After a momentary struggle, Sam finally manages to yank his duffle out from under the pile of bags. He tosses it onto the couch and digs around until he finds a clean shirt and a pair of sweatpants.

"I'm gonna go shower so I don't have to listen to this," he tells Dean.

"Have fun," his brother replies breezily.

Sam sighs, sparing him a small, fond smile before he slips into the bathroom and shuts the door with a click.

He strips down and climbs into the shower, grimacing when he realizes that, in addition to absolutely pitiful water pressure, this motel boasts shower heads that are just this side of too short for him. Sam hunches down to force his head under the spray and tries very hard not to think about the last shower he took at Bobby's, tries to ignore the memory of standing wet and hard under the spray, a hand on himself and Dean on the other side of the door, talking to him in that soft, raspy voice, telling him to—

Sam swallows thickly, snatching up the shampoo bottle and uncapping it with a click. There's no point in thinking about that, he reminds himself harshly. After all, isn't thinking about his brother that way what got them in this mess in the first place? Anyway, Dean had just been…

Just been what, exactly? Teasing him? Joking around? That's a little far to go for a joke, even for Dean. If Sam didn't know better, he'd think—

He frowns, working the shampoo into a lather with rough scrubs. No, he reminds himself. That doesn't matter. Who cares _why_ Dean chose to toe the line at Bobby's? Sam is the one who keeps launching himself over it, keeps pushing this messed up thing on Dean, and it doesn't matter how deeply, stubbornly, stupidly in denial Dean is, Sam knows what he did. He knows how it feels to be on the other side of this. It feels like Meg's tiny, groping hands, knees clamped down tight on either side of his thighs, and it feels like Yellow Eyes' hands caressing his face, shoving visions inside Sam's head, shoving blood into his veins, and it makes his stomach roll, makes him feel _ill_ to think about making _Dean_ feel like that, about doing that to _anyone_.

And Sam just can't understand how Dean can stand to be _around_ him, can't begin to fathom how his brother, even as incredibly, dogged loyal as he is, can overlook this. Because on some level, under the thick cover of big brother protectiveness, bullheaded machismo, and patented Winchester denial, Dean must know that Sam's right. Why else would there be this kind of tension between them? Why the harsh, knee-jerk aggression, the secret keeping?

Dean knows.

He knows that what Sam's doing is sick and awful and wrong, and he can try to dismiss it as much as he wants, but it's never going to be okay, and it's not going away.

"_It won't happen again,"_ Dean had said, like he honestly believed it, as if he could _possibly_ know that, and Sam wishes he could believe it. That part of him that will always be Dean's kid brother, the part that's always Sammy instead of Sam is screaming at him that he can trust Dean, that Dean will take care of him, that it's all going to be okay because Dean _promised_. But Sam's not a kid anymore, and as much as he'd like them to be, things just aren't that simple. This isn't a promise Dean can keep. If he could, if he had the power to make it stop, this wouldn't have happened to begin with. It wouldn't _keep _happening.

Dean can't make it stop, no matter what he's telling himself, and it's obvious that Sam can't stop himself. He can't make Dean walk away. He can't even make _himself_ leave, as awful and selfish as that makes him. There's no way out of this, nowhere to go, no way to escape, and he wishes Dean would just stop digging his heels in, would just _listen_ for _once_, would stop lying and hiding things and pretending things are okay, that things between them will _ever_ be the same again.

Sam wishes like hell they could, that they could go back to how they were last year at Stanford, the two of them and Jess, just sitting in the kitchen of their crappy apartment and swapping stories, laughing, feeling happy, feeling _safe_. He wishes they could go back to the way they were a few months ago, back when things were simple, just him and Dean and the road, saving people and hunting things and looking for their dad. Back before magic guns and demon blood and burning churches, before that morning in Manning when Sam woke up pressed against Dean's hip and didn't have the good sense to roll away.

But it doesn't matter what he wants or what Dean wants. They can never go back again, and it's all Sam's fault.

And because it's Sam's fault, that makes it his responsibility. He can't fix this, can't ever make up for the things he's done, the thing he _is_, but he can try like hell to keep it from getting worse. If Dean won't – or can't – deal with reality, Sam will. He won't make his big brother a liar.

It won't happen again.

It won't. It _can't_.

Sam ducks his head under the spray again, forces a long, slow breath in and out of his lungs. There's a dull pounding in his temples, a hard ache in his jaw, and he realizes he's been clenching his teeth. He tries to make himself relax, let go of the tension and ignore the tightness in his throat, the pounding of his heart at the thought of what comes next, and how horrible, how fucking _pitiful _it is that something as simple as going to bed scares him now? Sleeping next to Dean used to make him feel happy, used to chase the fear away and make him feel comfortable and loved and happy. It used to be the one safe place in his world. Now the thought of it terrifies him.

And that's fine, that's really okay, because Sam isn't sharing a bed with Dean tonight. There's a couch for him to crash on, and that's alright, it _is_, because sleeping alone or, more likely, lying awake with his fear and regret and existential antichrist bullshit keeping him company is still a million times better that the alternative.

He finishes his shower and gets dressed for bed, tries to ignore the lump in his throat, the sick feeling of anticipatory dread in his stomach, and tells himself this is the best thing to do, the only thing he _can_ do, and maybe, just maybe, Dean won't fight him on this.

At least, Sam hopes he won't.

When Sam comes out of the bathroom, he's encouraged to see that Dean seems to be in a pretty good mood. His brother has stripped down to a t-shirt and boxers and is sitting cross-legged at the head of the bed, a plate piles high with food balanced on his legs. Sam doesn't know why he's even surprised to see that Dean has, in fact, ordered both garlic knots and cinnamon bread, from two different restaurants no less, if the boxes open on the nightstand are anything to go on. Sam wonders if he made the delivery guys fight over the tip.

"Shower's free," he offers.

Dean shakes his head without taking his eyes off the TV, where the screen is flashing rapidly between footage of the Great Pyramid, Stonehenge, and Chichen Itza.

"Nah, I'm good," he answers, stuffing a garlic knot into his mouth whole before wiping his fingers on the bedspread. Sam grimaces.

He crosses the room to shove his dirty clothes into his duffle. It's no surprise that Dean's not going to be taking a shower. After that argument earlier, he probably wants to stick around to keep an eye on Sam, make sure he doesn't take off. Some part of Sam can't help taking offence at that, even though he knows it's completely fair. After all, Sam hasn't exactly proved himself to be the most trustworthy person lately.

"What are you watching?" he asks, casting a skeptical eye at the television.

"History channel," Dean answers, picking a piece of cinnamon bread off of the place in his lap with two fingers and using it to gesture toward the screen. "You'll like this, Sammy. It's educational."

"_But there may be another answer,"_ the narrator drones. _"Could the Mayan calendar have actually been written… by aliens?"_

Sam raises an eyebrow.

"Dude, change the channel."

"Aw, c'mon, Sam!" Dean grins. "This is _research_. Apparently there's an Apocalypse coming in twenty-somethin'. We gotta be ready!"

Sam rolls his eyes.

"Can you at least turn down the volume? I'm about to crash anyway."

Dean nods, taking another enormous bite of cinnamon bread.

"By the way, you want some of this?" he asks, sending a spray of crumbs all over himself and the sheets. "I ordered extra."

"No thanks," Sam says with a wince and can't help adding, "You know you're getting cinnamon all over the bed, right?"

Apparently Dean has forgotten that choosing a hotel room with one bed means he no longer has the luxury of a separate eating bed and sleeping bed. Not that it should matter to Sam now, really. If Dean wants to sleep in a small mountain of cinnamon sugar, that's his business.

"Hey, sweet dreams, Sammy," Dean quips with a shrug and an expansive grin.

"There's something deeply wrong with you," Sam deadpans, sliding open the closet door in search of a spare blanket for the pull-out.

He's pleasantly surprised to find that there is one waiting on the top shelf. It's small and worn thin with age, but it looks clean and when Sam shoves it up to his nose, it doesn't smell too musty. He throws it over one arm, crossing back over to the bed. He can feel Dean's eyes on him, and he tries to shrug them off, his stomach sinking as he picks up one the pillows from the bed and gives it a couple of testing pats.

"What are you doing?" Dean asks, the disapproval obvious in his voice.

Sam's eyes dart up to his brother's stormy face and then away again. Great. Here it comes.

"Um, getting ready for bed?" he says with forced nonchalance.

"Goddammit, Sam!" Dean spikes his garlic knot down onto his plate with sudden violence. Sam watches it bounce onto the floor and roll under the nightstand. "_Seriously_?!"

"_What_?" Sam demands, bristling under the brunt of Dean's anger.

His brother glares at him.

"After we did that- the whole _thing_," he gestures angrily, "you're still gonna make us— _Really_, Sam?!"

"Yes, really!" Sam exclaims indignantly. "Dean, we talked about this! I _told_ you—"

"Yeah," Dean interrupts. "Yeah, you told me. It's bad and wrong and blah blah blah, but seriously, do we have to do this tonight? We can't wait until we have, you know, _more than one bed_?"

Sam stares at him incredulous.

"NO!" he exclaims. "Are you kidding?! The fact that there's only one bed is _exactly _why we have to do this! Dean, this needs to happen now! This should have happened a _long _time ago!"

"Why?" Dean demands.

Sam gapes at him, his mouth working uselessly for a few seconds. Jesus, he'd known Dean still wasn't completely on board with this, but Sam hadn't realized he'd managed to miss the point this _tremendously_.

"Why?!" he explodes. "Because it's- it's messed up, Dean! It's weird and—"

"Psh," Dean scoffs, "it's not weird!"

"No, it is," Sam insists. "It's weird and twisted, and it's exactly what ended up with this morning- this morning happening the way it happened, so no. No, I'm _not_ going to do that to you again, and the only way to make sure it doesn't happen again is if you stay in your space and I stay in mine."

"Okay, rebuttal," Dean says, crossing his arms. "How about we _don't_ do that, and you just feel really bad about it?"

"_Dean_!"

"So what?" Dean demands. "I gotta sleep on the couch just 'cause you've got your panties in a twist?!"

"You don't have to sleep on the couch!" Sam protests. "I'll—"

"No," Dean interrupts. "No, no, no. I'm not gonna let you guilt-trip me by oragami-ing your Gigantor ass onto that thing all night and then limping around tomorrow like back pain's your goddamn penance. You want someone to suffer the goddamn consequences for your fucking freak out? Deal with the fact that it's gonna be me."

He stands abruptly, switches off the TV (_"Could this ancient image really show Pakal… in an alien spacecraft?"_), and flings the remote onto the nightstand next to his boxes of greasy carbs before yanking the pillow and blanket out of Sam's arms.

Sam steps swiftly between him and the couch.

"Dean, come on," he entreats. "Don't do that."

"Fine," Dean says stubbornly. "I won't sleep on the couch if you won't."

Sam shakes his head.

"I _told you_ I was taking a step back," he reminds his brother. "You said it was my choice, remember?"

Dean purses his lips, fixing him with a silent, furious look.

"Dean, you _said_," Sam repeats plaintively, ashamed to hear it come out as a childish whine. "You don't— You don't get to be mad at me for this."

"Pretty sure I'm allowed to feel however I want, Sam," Dean says coldly.

"You know that's not what I meant," Sam protest. "I—"

"Look," Dean interrupts again, "I said I wasn't gonna let it happen again. Why can't that be enough for you?"

"Dean, you _know_ why," Sam exclaims. "I- I _really_ don't get why you're fighting this so hard."

Dean shoves abruptly past him to toss the pillow onto the couch.

"'Night, Sam," he says shortly.

He flops down heavily, and then after a second, sits back up to grab Sam's bag off of the end of the couch. He tosses it haphazardly onto the luggage rack, and the whole stack of bags goes tumbling down with a series of muffled clanks that make Sam wince.

"Dean," he tries as his brother throws himself down again onto the pullout, his back to Sam.

"Can't hear you," Dean tells him. "There's a spring in my ear."

"At least fold it out," Sam protests weakly.

"No, it's fine," Dean says, even though it's abundantly clear from the tone of his voice and the pained line of his back that it is not, in fact, fine.

This is blackmail. Dean is legitimately blackmailing Sam with his own suffering.

It's brilliant.

"Anyway, why would I fold out a fold-out couch?" Dean grumbles. "Then there'd be all that extra room, and that would just be _weird_. It would be like having a whole big bed and actually having the maximum amount of people in it! That's just _wrong_."

Sam doesn't dignify that rant with a response. He grabs their bags off of the floor and puts them back onto the luggage rack, then picks Dean's plate from the table and stoops down to try to grope for the garlic knot that rolled under the nightstand. He shudders when his fingers close around something greasy and squishy, and he sits back and drops the food quickly onto the plate, tossing it into the trash before wiping his fingers on his sweatpants. He closes the boxes of food, stacks them on the table, and then stands there awkwardly in the middle of the room with nothing more to do with his hands. He clears his throat.

"Dean..." he tries again.

"Go to bed, Sam," his brother orders, not looking at him.

"But—"

"Sam! Go!"

Sam stares for a moment longer at the hard, unyielding wall of his back then limps, defeated, over to the big, lonely bed. He flips back the comforter and clicks off the lamp with a sigh.

He slips between the sheets and immediately grimaces at the feeling of cinnamon sugar and crumbs against his skin, because as predicted, Dean has gotten it _everywhere_, and that's- That's just fucking _fantastic_.

Cursing himself for not protested harder about the whole eating on the bed issue, he clamors to his feet and does his best to shake out the sheets as quietly as possible.

Not that he actually needs to worry about waking Dean up. Even in the dark, Sam can read him well enough to see that. He's too still, too stiff, the air in this crappy, cramped little room too heavy with silent resentment. No, Dean isn't sleeping. He's just lying over there, silently _hating_ him, and Sam doesn't know _why_.

He flops back down onto the bed and buries his face in a pillow that still smells oppressively of garlic butter and cinnamon. It's useless. Useless to try to get all the crumbs out of this stupid bed and just as useless, if not more, to try to figure out what the hell is going on with his brother.

No matter how hard he tries, he can't understand how, after everything that's happened, Dean still thinks that closing their eyes, plugging their ears, and repeating the worn out mantra of "Everything's fine," will solve _anything_. And yeah, denial has always been Dean's M.O., but how can he possibly expect Sam to go along with it? How can he expect Sam to go along with _anything_ that could end up hurting him?

Sam hates fighting with Dean, feels bruised and miserable under the brunt of his brother's anger, but he hates the idea of hurting Dean more, and most of all, he hates that, no matter what choice he makes, it just seems to make things worse. That he can't find the right words, the right path to take to make things – not good, not even better – but at the very least _okay_. He hates being _hated_, hates being alone in this cold, dirty bed, hates how everything is one step forward and two steps back, how the two feet between him and Dean might as well be miles, light-years, and God, what was even the point of him staying if it's going to be like this?

Sam rolls over onto his side, staring again at the solitary shadow of his brother's back.

"Dean," he whispers.

His brother doesn't answer, but in the dim light, Sam can see his shoulders shift minutely towards him before they still, a sure sign that Dean's listening. Sam bites his lip. He doesn't know how to fix this, doesn't know what he can say to bridge this awful space between them, but he can't stand the thought of them both lying here all night, awake and not speaking, picking at their wounds, Dean nursing his grudge, building resentment. Sam knows he deserves all of the scorn his brother can heap on him, all of the anger Dean can muster, but he can't just let it go. Can't let _Dean_ go, and dammit, that's it. That's the whole fucking _problem_.

Except for it's not. Not really. It's Sam who's the problem. It's Sam who keeps screwing things up between them, who's probably _never_ going to get this right because he's still not sure what he did _wrong_, and he should _know_. He's supposed to know Dean better than anyone else in the world. He should be able to figure this out.

He should be doing better than this.

"I'm sorry," he says in a small, tremulous voice. "I—"

"Don't," Dean interrupts, and he doesn't sound angry anymore. His voice is low, rasping, worn raw. "Don't- Don't say that to me."

Sam furrows his brow.

"But…"

Dean shakes his head, silent except for the soft rustle of his hair against the pillow.

Outside, a car wheels slowly past their room, gravel crunching under its tread. The headlights shine through the window and slide across the room, illuminating it, and in that bright glare, the curled-up shadow of Dean's body doesn't look like a wall, a barrier designed to keep Sam out. He looks small and sad and alone, and for the first time, Sam thinks that maybe he got this all wrong.

Maybe he isn't the only one who needs this.

He flops over onto his back, exhales a long, thin breath, and stares up at the popcorn ceiling. God, he's been so _stupid_, too preoccupied with beating himself up for needing Dean to think about the ways that Dean might need him back.

Sam's not the only one who's had his world turned upside down. He's not the only one who came out of Louisiana with scars, not the only one who's lost somebody, who's struggling under the weight of Yellow Eyes' plans, trying to shift through the shattered pieces of their family for something to salvage. Dean's always been the strong one, strong and stubborn and braver than Sam, but maybe… Maybe this wasn't all for Sam's benefit. Maybe he isn't the only one who needs a warm body curled up next to him to keep the nightmares at bay.

He glances back over at his brother. The shadows have swallowed Dean up again, his body nothing more than a dimly lit silhouette. Sam tracks the rise and fall of his shoulders, listens to his thin, controlled breathing, and for the first time, his resolve begins waver. It was easier to stick to his guns when it was a choice between protecting his brother or hurting him, but if the choice is hurting Dean one way versus hurting him another?

Sam doesn't know what to think.

Dean's made it pretty clear which poison he'd prefer to swallow, made it painfully obvious that he'd prefer to carry on like they had been in spite of what Sam did. Maybe it should be Dean's choice whether they split up or not. Sam knows better than most how galling, how awful it is to have people making the choices for you, calling the shots, doing things 'for your own good,' and yeah, it's patronizing and infuriating and maybe he _does_ understand why Dean had been so pissed off earlier.

But even so, the thought of losing control, of waking up to find that he's crossed that line again is terrifying. It makes his stomach roll, his heart pound, the guilt of what he's done a sickening compliment to the guilt of making Dean sleep alone, of condemning him to the same gut-wrenching fear that creeps in whenever Sam is alone, seeps in like a fog through locked doors and tucked in sheets and eyes closed tight to press in on him from all sides and sit heavy on his chest. Forcing Dean to sleep alone would protect him from Sam's roaming hands and twisted mind, but it won't protect him from that, and Sam can't pretend he doesn't understand why Dean seems to think it's worse.

Sam presses his palms against his eyes, feeling the beginnings of a stress headache creeping in from his temples. It's not fair. _None_ of this is fair. Sam doesn't want to make this decision. He doesn't want to be responsible for hurting his brother – not in _any_ way, not at _all_. He doesn't want Dean to be miserable or lonely or afraid. He searches desperately for some third option, something he could do or say to make his brother feel better now without risking the very real possibility of ruining everything later, and comes up with nothing. Nothing feasible, nothing Dean would accept. Anyway, he's made it obvious what he wants.

Sam's moving before he even realizes he's decided to. He shoves the sheets down the bed and hears the sugar that he'd missed in his earlier purge give a soft, granulated hiss. He clamors to his feet then freezes, petrified, his bare toes flexing against the rough, mottled carpet.

He stands there, hanging on the precipice of a moment for what feels like ages. Dean's breath has gone almost imperceptivity stiller which means he's noticed, that he's listening, trying to figure out what Sam's up to, but it's not too late.

Sam could turn and walk into the bathroom like that's what he meant to do all along, splash some water on his face, crawl back into bed and white-knuckle it through the night like he'd planned to from the beginning. He could cram his feet into his shoes and walk right out the door, be halfway through hotwiring some yahoo's car by the time Dean even knew what hit him, and maybe those would be better choices, _smarter_ choices, than what he's about to do.

Sam's always been good at running away, but he's so goddamn tired of doing it. He's so goddamn tired of making the wrong choices, and maybe this will turn out to be the worst one of all. It's stupid and terrifying and _completely insane_, but it's what Dean wants. After all the crap Sam's pulled, after all the million ways he's screwed up Dean's life, he can at least give him that. Even if it ends up being the thing that ruins them.

He lurches forward and crosses the room to flop down onto the couch behind his brother. He feels Dean start, tense up, and for a moment, he's afraid he read this all wrong. That Dean really is angry at him, that he's going to push Sam away, send him back to bed. But then Dean shifts forward to give Sam more of what little room there is on the hard, narrow couch, lets him crowd in closer, relaxes by inches back against Sam's chest. Sam winds an arm around him, presses his forehead between his shoulder blades, the warmth bleeding through his brother's soft, worn t-shirt. Lying here like this, it's easy to forget, at least for a moment, why this seemed so scary. It's amazing how being with Dean, being close to him, still has that effect, how it can be as comforting at it is terrifying.

Dean doesn't question it, doesn't ask Sam why he changed his mind or what the hell he thinks he's doing, and Sam's glad for that because he honestly has no idea. He doesn't know if he's doing this for Dean or if that's just the excuse he's giving himself, a paper-thin justification for doing everything he wants to do and knows he shouldn't.

Nothing's changed, not really. The odds are good, damn good, that Sam will ruin this sooner or later. He can't hide the truth forever, and that's true no matter how much distance he puts between himself and Dean. He can try to minimize the damage, can try to keep Dean as far out of the crosshairs as possible, but eventually, something's got to give.

He can feel them drawing inevitably, inexorably closer to a future that casts a dark, looming shadow over both of them, to whatever's waiting for them in Alabama, to all their secrets unearthed, to Yellow Eyes and the monstrous, nightmarish thing that Sam's supposed to become, and if he's damned either way, so be it. He's going to stay here for as long as his brother still wants him.

He's going to keep holding on to Dean for as long as he can, even if that's only a week or a day or as long as the time between now and morning.


	81. Chapter 81

Morning comes, slower and stiffer than it usually does.

The weak sunlight filters through the nicotine-stained drapes as Dean scrubs a hand through last night's stubble and shifts out from under the big dog sprawl of his overgrown little brother. He lets Sam's snoring deadweight flop onto the couch as he contorts his way to freedom on knees that really, really wish he'd stuck to his guns last night and forced a hostile takeover of the bed like, you know, they've been doing _for fucking ever_.

_Jesus Christ_, Dean thinks, cracking his back with a pained wince as he jabs the coffee-maker into caffeine-providing submission. It's not like either of them was goddamn suffering, sprawled all over one another all those months, and it's not like he would have let something like that morning at Bobby's happen again after Sammy pulled a day-long sulk and tried to hit the fucking road over it, suddenly finding morals or Jesus or his fucking pearls to clutch or something, because it happened once and now _everything's_ gotta change.

And again, even in his own head, Dean can't escape his own bullshit because he's– God he's been _ridiculous_ lately. So fucking googley-eyed over his own goddamn brother he doesn't know which way is goddamn up half the time, much less what's going on in Sammy's overgrown head.

Jesus, when Sam had been trying to make a break for it earlier... Dean had been so lost in- in whatever the hell he thought Sammy was leaning in for that he didn't get that his little brother was making a play for the keys until they were in the kid's fucking hand.

Thank god it was Sammy and not a monster in that room, 'cause that's the kinda shit that gets you killed. Not that he'd be thinking about... about _that_ with somethin' on the huntable scale, but _still_.

He needs to get his head in the game here. Fast. Because they're about to go up against Yellow Eyes and all of his black-eyed bitch minions, and Dean can't go into this at anything less than a hundred, can't walk into this fight at anything other than his best, not when it's Sammy on the line. Not when he's the only backup the kid's got.

And not when it's Mom. Mom and the fight they've been fighting their whole lives. Jess and the life Sammy could've, _should've_ been able to lead.

Sammy. Dean's first and last good thing. The only thing that has to, absolutely _has to_, make it through all this in one piece, 'cause otherwise, otherwise what was even- what would even be the point?

And it scares the shit outta Dean, going up against the biggest, baddest thing they've ever hunted. The monster they've been chasing their entire lives, packing nothing but a beat up pistol and a list of kids like Sam, kids who should have been normal but were born under a bad sign, yellow eyed stars and flame red skies spelling out bad seas and rough sailing from day one, if not before.

Kids who could be normal, or something close to it, if he and Sammy could just pull it out, just scrape by this one last time.

God, he's gotta not _ever_ think of it like that again.

But who could blame him? Who could come at him for eyeing the worst case scenario when every move they've made coming after this bastard has lead them from hell to high water?

From psychic powers to demon's blood to Sammy, shaking and seizing on the floor as Yellow Eyes himself gave the kid a hit of pure, uncut nightmare.

From running with Dad to running from Dad to Dad doing the unthinkable, the _unbelievable, _and doing his damnedest to take Dean out of commission so he could get away with it? Because he knew, just _knew_, that no matter what, there's no way Dean'd just stand back and let Sammy burn, no matter what the kid did or didn't do.

No matter whose blood Sam's got running in his veins - Dad's or Dean's or the Devil's himself - no matter what that means for him, no matter what taking out that Yellow Eyed Bastard does or doesn't do to fix it, Dean'll be there by his brother's side every step of way.

There's nothing else for him, no possible better purpose for him than to be by Sammy's side, taking their whole damn lives back by inches with every hit they land on this yellow-eyed bastard and his black bitch minions. If thinking that means he's damned, means Dad was right, that he signed his own fucking death warrant getting off that bus in (whatever the fuck state Jim lives in. Michigan? Utah? Delusion?), then that's what it goddamn means.

He's with Sam on this one. No matter how bad things gets - no matter how far south things go, and no matter how many times someone gets a little too much stupid spilt on their shirt, gets it in their head that they're bigger and brighter and know best and decides to make today the worst day of their life, decides to do the heroic goddamn thing and take a crack at taking Sammy out - Dean'll be there, with a bullet or a blade or his bare goddamn hands, ready and waiting to show however many dumb sons of bitches he has to why making a move on his little brother is the dumbest move in the world for anyone not itching for another hole to breathe out of.

And the worst part, the worst part of all of it, is that Dean can kinda see why they keep tryin'.

Sammy…

Well, if he didn't know the kid…

But he does. Knows him better than he knows every other goddamn thing in this life, didn't live and breathe knowing him like the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, like a religion, like a disease, like strong whisky or fast pills, addiction sick and creeping and the best, sweetest way to go, because he can't see clearly when it comes to Sam, at least not when it comes to giving up on him.

At least when it comes to letting him go.

And it's not like it's ever been a secret that Sammy's been his weak spot since day one. But there's weak spots and there's gaping holes in the ribs, place so raw and weeping you're not sure what could fill them, even when you've got what could be the perfect piece right there, just waiting to be slotted into it's place.

If you just had the guts to try.

If they weren't already spilled out and sprawling all over the floor.

God, when Sammy'd crossed that room that night- just, just dropped his whole idiotic, annoying, making-the-worst-kind-of-sense-in-the-world separation routine cold to pull the stupid, ridiculous, totally Sam move of just ditching the bed entirely and—

And being Sam.

Being his big, dumb, girly, too-tall, too-smart, too-good-for-this-whole-damn-nightmare little brother, somehow able to figure out how to make sense of this whole mess, to figure out what Dean needed before Dean could even figure it out himself. He got it, and he gave it to Dean, no matter how much it might have gone against Sammy's whole "Be Normal or Make Everyone Miserable Trying" routine.

Because no matter how much his little brother might not want something, no matter how much he might be dead set on 'normal' and 'regular' and 'healthy,' he's got a weak spot of his own, and he'll end up ditching it all for Dean every time.

Every single time.

And it's not a good feeling, knowing Sam'll give up that part of himself to let Dean have his way. There's no happiness in knowing that Sam'll do something that makes him miserable, leaves him hunched in and wracked with guilt in his every waking moment, just to let Dean pencil in the win.

Because having Sam there, safe and warm and loose against him in sleep like he always is, always has been, only to see him jolt awake every morning, tense and terrified and wound tight in waking...

It's getting what he wants, but not winning. Not really.

But God, had he wanted it, relaxed so hard he almost broke when Sam crossed that room last night, all too long limbs and dripping hair and little brother heat cramming itself onto a laughably undersized couch by sheer force of will 'cause- 'cause—

'Cause when Sam had crossed that room last night, had pulled the stupid, ridiculous, completely Sam move of dropping the bed and normal to be what Dean wanted, what Dean _needed—_

It had felt good. _Good_ and _bad,_ and how do you stay away from that? How do you stop or say 'no' to Sam, all big little brother heat and floppy hair, bangs sneaking over Dean's shoulder as he buries his face in Dean's back, his arms and legs and knees everywhere, hair tickling his cheek as his nose scrubs against the ridges of his spine, his lips brush, warm and open, against the arch of Dean's neck as all slow, sloppy six plus feet of his little brother, his whole damn world, slumped, slow and gentle against him, huffing hot, lazy breaths along the slide of his spine through Dean's t-shirt, ticking down his back, keeping him more awake, more _aware_, than being crammed onto a crappy fold-out squashed beneath several shit tons of Midwestern muscle could reasonably account for.

Because Dean could forget the springs digging into his ribs. He could forget the way his legs were crammed against the arm, the way his wrist was squashed up into his shoulder and tingling already. He could forget the way he couldn't quite breathe and definitely couldn't move so his foot stopped wedging itself into the cushion and against something he really hoped was just another spring and not, like, an escaped hypo, but he couldn't ignore Sam, hot and heavy at his back, tried and tired and relaxed, loose and easy in sleep like he hasn't been in way too damn long.

He couldn't ignore that. Couldn't ignore the fact that Sam was there and- well, not happy, but closer than he's been in a long time, and all on a promise from Dean, all on his word that what happened yesterday, that awful, amazing morning, wouldn't happen again. On the one hand, that's great. Sammy not freaking out and keeping Dean at arm's length like one or both if them is some sort of homo bomb about to go off into a spontaneous sexplosion if they come within three feet of one another? That's goddamn great.

But the thing was, _is_...

The thing is, Sam might have been right.

Because Dean couldn't sleep. Couldn't turn it off, couldn't ignore it, couldn't focus on a damn thing but the long, hot line of Sam against his back, and it wasn't- _isn't_- like before, back when Sam, sleep-stupid and lazy in the bed next to him, was the only way to be sure he was safe, that the world as still turning. It wasn't like earlier last night, when having Sam against him, holding him in his arms and locking them together, was the only way to make sure his little brother wasn't going anywhere, to make sure his whole goddamn world didn't fall apart at the seams, didn't dissolve into ruin and worry and a constant, crushing question of _where'ssamwhere'ssamwhere'sam_.

This - all this - is different. This is long, hot limbs and supple, sleeping, suntanned skin, slick and sizzling and electric-shock sharp in the dark. This isn't boys or bodies or brothers, this is- this is bar rooms and back alleys. This is fast shots and slow dances, touches that last too long and introductions that spin quick and easy into somewhere, anywhere, into unzipping and unbuttoning and skin, hot and heady under his hands. God, Sam was right there and he couldn't- can't- help but think about that morning at Bobby's, about waking up, sleep-slow and sex-stupid to Sammy, _his_ Sammy, just- just _everywhere_, the exact same everywhere he's always been, but- but more, quicker, hotter, faster, deeper, the eye of a storm suddenly raging and wracked with electricity, a super-charged spark ready to light a match and burn it all down.

And that was before Sam'd gotten a hand on him.

And he can't stop thinking about it, that spark and Sam's hands, limber and long fingered and tangled, always tangled, tight in the hem of Dean's shirt, holding on and never letting go. He and Sam got a good thing goin' on here, have for a hell of a long time, and he can't, _can't_ screw it all to hell by keeping this shit up, by thinking about tan skin and long fingers and Sam's mouth, hot and open and dragging against the crest of his spine, the spark-sensitive slices of silver scar along Dean's neck, marks that make him _his_ and this _theirs. _He can never, _will never_, slip up like that morning at Bobby's again. He won't let this, this _thing_ that he's got, that belongs to Sam and only to Sam, get that out of control again.

Because he promised. Promised Sammy - for all that the kid didn't know how much of Dean's fucking fault that whole damn fiasco was - that it'd never happen again, and he meant it. Honest.

Because what this is doing to his brother? To them both?

It's just not worth it.

It's not.

"I know." Sam groans, hauling himself up on the couch when the sun in his eyes and impossibility of couchly comfort make getting up the least objectionable option. "Guilt. Suffering. Origami. My fault."

"Tell it to the painkillers, Gigantor," Dean says, passing them over with a chipped mug of motel coffee. "We got miles to go and demons to kill."

"Mmmph," Sam grumbles, and even like this - even preverbal and rumpled and achy, all morning breath and wrinkled cotton and pouty faced with miserably bad coffee, even after spending a pretty much sleepless goddamn night more or less crushed under his brother's overheated dead weight - Dean wants to just shove his fingers through the kid's tangled, sun-spiked hair, tip him back onto the couch, drag his teeth down the arch of his neck and tear off that stupid dog shirt to lick his way down Sammy's stupidly defined stomach and show him how good a morning they could make it.

God, if they were in a bed... If they had the whole day before them and no hunt to worry about and a healthy amount of slick between them...

Okay, no. No, _not_ a good thing to think about. Not a good thing to think about for a whole hell of a _lot_ of reasons, first and foremost of which would be admitting Sam is right about their ability to keep their hands to themselves in general and the wisdom of jumping under the covers despite this fact in specific.

Instead of admitting, out loud and out of nowhere, that Sam was maybe onto something with the whole "Cold Turkey Bedsharing Ban" thing, Dean starts hauling things out to the car.

If a lifetime of trying to stop Sam and Dad's fights before they started has taught him anything, it was that there was no substitute for saying something stupid like getting the hell out and doing something useful somewhere far, far away.

Unlucky for Dean, there isn't much useful to do outside of tossing a few duffles in the trunk and squaring up with the Juicy Fruit chomping proprietor in the front office, after which he's in the front seat with Sam and right back where he started as they pulled out onto the nearest stretch of interstate.

"You're thinking about it again." Sam notes about an hour later as Asia fades out on the scratchy, half out of range rock station they've managed to pick up and CCR starts in.

"What?" Dean asks, eyes not leaving the road as Missouri turns into Tennessee beneath their wheels.

"That thing you won't tell me." His brother answers, unwrapping a protein bar like it's the most interesting thing in the world. "Whatever it is, you're thinking about it."

"Am not," Dean scoffs, because for the last few miles, he's been keeping an ear on his baby's fan belts, trying to figure out if there's something loose in her insides he needs to tighten up before they face off against Yellow Eyes and find that their getaway car's gotten high strung all of a sudden and hung them out to dry.

For once, he's actually not thinking about the arch of Sam's neck or the long, graceful stretch of his fingers, the stupid nearly-blonde highlights the sun catches in his hair the first thing in the morning, or the way he turns to Dean at night, safe and steady and tangled together in that quiet, perfect place between asleep and awake.

"So you admit there's something, then." Sam nods, eyeing Dean from the passenger seat as he realizes he's fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the goddamn book.

This is clearly what being a brother-creeping-on perv gets you. Or what not sleeping because you're a brother-creeping-on perv gets you, and either way, karma is real and making Dean it's bitch by way of stupid, too-perceptive brothers and suddenly-a-little-claustrophobic tight spaces.

Dean opens his mouth to deny it and gets as far as the inhale before Sam's cutting him off.

"Whatever it is, Dean, you can tell me," Sam insists. "I know you think you can't, and I get that, I do, but you can. So just... Come on, man. Rip off the bandaid already."

"Fine, Samantha." Dean smirks, determined to get this back in hand. "Apparently one shower a day isn't enough. You smell like day old fast food."

"I wonder whose fault that is," Sam bitches, rolling his eyes and setting his teeth in again. "I'm serious about this, Dean. You can joke all you want, but we've got a long ass drive today, and I'm not letting it go. You can tell me or you can keep brushing me off, but I'm gonna keep asking."

"Yeah, and what happened to letting me keep it under my goddamn bushel basket?"

"I said you could keep it under there," Sam says, "not that I wasn't going to do my damnedest to figure out what the hell it is you're hiding from me."

"So I gotta have my privacy invaded, just because you're genetically unable to leave anything alone?" he demands.

"Little brother privilege." Sam shrugs with the ghost of a grin.

"Sam—"

"Whatever it is, it's eating you up inside, Dean," Sam cuts him off seriously. "Worse than anything I've ever seen eat at you."

"Really?" Dean can't help but ask. "Because you've literally seen me being eaten."

Dean doesn't even try to squash his grin when Sam shoots him a bitchface for the ages.

"What, too soon?" Dean grins, reaching across the cab to shove at his brother's shoulder, even as Sam irritatedly shrugs him off. "Come on, dude. I'm a tasty treat. 10/10 monsters recommend."

"Yeah, keep joking about that, next time I'm gonna…" Sam trails off, doesn't finish that. He's still trying to swallow a smile, so Dean counts it as a win. "That was bad, dude, even for you."

It probably says terrible things about their lives that they can joke about the multiple times Dean has been fed on by monsters made of high octane nightmare fuel.

"It's worse than when Dad told you about me," Sam pushes quietly, "and that's saying something. I just... I don't want this to be another one of those secrets we keep, the ones that keep getting dragged out at the worst possible time or the worst possible place."

"Like your liking dudes?"

"I was going to go with the whole 'you're demon spawn mean to start the apocalypse' things, but by all means, Dean, take what I said to it's most literal and embarrassing extent. That'll really make this trip easier."

"Says the guy trying to get me to spill my deepest darkest secretiest secrets." Dean snorts. "What next, are we gonna braid each other's hair and make s'mores in the fire place?"

"You're not alone in this, Dean." Sam grits out, Dalai-Yoda patience clearly starting to wear thin which, _good_. Maybe it'll get him to drop this and let them finish this thing in manly, share-and-care-less silence. "I know you think you are, but- even if you don't tell me whatever- whatever's so bad you won't tell me- I'm here. Whatever it is. Whenever you want to come out with it. I'm here."

"Gaaay," Dean drawls.

"Dean."

"What?

"You're really gonna do that?" Sam demands. "You're really gonna keep sitting there, keeping shit from me again, days after asking me if there's anything I'm keeping from _you_? You gave that whole speech about how, if you care about someone, you freakin tell them shit like this, and you're gonna sit there and repeatedly make fun of me for saying that whatever it is, you can tell me? I mean _Christ_, Dean. The mind-boggling hypocrisy aside, we got through 'you're baby-bartered demon-spawn destined to end the world' thing. What the fuck is even left worth keeping secret after that?"

"It's not—" Dean frowns. "It doesn't matter."

"Dude, we've got the end of the world on our plates, with me as the main course, and you're still more torn up over whatever this is than what we've got in front of us," Sam says. "Not to tell you your shit man, but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that if it's higher on the list than me going hell-crowd, eating babies, and ending life on earth as we know it, _it matters_."

Dean narrows his eyes, glaring at the asphalt. "Sam, can't you just drop it?"

Sam goes mercifully quiet. Dean fiddles with the dial until he comes up with a channel playing Hendrix. He drums his fingers on the wheel, waits for the other shoe to drop.

"Where are we driving, Dean?" Sam asks suddenly, which okay. Not what Dean was expecting.

Dean glances away from the road to give him a curious glance. "Tusca—"

"Yeah, Tuscaloosa," Sam interrupts with a dismissive wave of his hand. "But after that? Where's this kid's house? What are we gonna do when we find it? Holy ground couldn't protect the Boeffels, so what are we gonna do when we find this next family? How are we gonna keep them safe?"

"I don't—"

"You don't know. And neither do I. And we're halfway to the state line and you haven't jumped down my throat about that fact, so whatever this is, it's got you so up your own ass after it that—"

"There is nothing up my ass!" Dean exclaims.

Sam quirks an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Shut up."

"I tried that," Sam says (_Yeah, not very hard, _Dean grumbles internally), "and this didn't go away. Then I tried being nice about it, and it didn't go away. Now I'm pretty much done with nice, Dean, because with any luck, we're gonna beat Yellow Eyes to this family and stop him like we couldn't in Blue Earth. With any luck, we're about to square off against the thing that started all of this, something bigger and badder than anything we've faced in our whole lives, something with a pretty solid interest in seeing you dead and me full-on evil, and with not much more than a busted-up pistol and some strategically placed spray-paint, so sorry if I want to get all our cards on the table here."

"Wait, is this the last night on Earth speech?" Dean asks incredulously. "I cannot believe you are trying to guilt this out of me with the last night on Earth speech. You, of all people, Sam."

"I'm trying to guilt this out of you?" Sam scoffs. "I am? Really? Really, Mr. 'If you care about people you tell them?' Mr. 'If you were keeping anything big and secret, you would tell me?'"

Dean glowers at him. He hates the way Sam does this, the way he holds tight onto every word Dean says to him, the way he'll turn around and hurl them back like a weapon.

"You know what, call it what you want, Dean," Sam continues. "But this? It's Yellow Eyes. He got mom. Jess. That family. You really think we're just gonna breeze through this one? This is- this is big. 'Our whole lives' big."

"You really think you need to tell me that?" Dean demands.

"I think I need to be the one who says, out loud, that—"

"No," Dean cuts him off sharply.

He jerks the wheel to the right, pulling over sharply onto the shoulder of the road. Sam slaps a hand up against the car ceiling to steady himself and stares at him open mouthed. Dean puts the Impala into park with a jolt.

"No," he reiterates. "I'm not going in to this if we're not both coming out the other end, Sam. So if that's where your head's at, you better make yourself goddamn comfy, 'cause we're not taking another step towards that bastard. If you don't—"

"If I don't stop looking at facts?" Sam interrupts. "If I don't stop telling you stuff you don't want to hear? If I don't—"

"If you don't stop being a bitch about every single bad thing that could ever happen to us, _ever_," Dean growls. "If you don't stop going defcon five over everything from the case to the kids to me not engaging in your girly-ass desire to have touchy-feel-time _constantly_. Sorry if I'm more focused on getting us where the fuck we need to go rather than hopping on Sammy's little drama train and riding that fucker right to girly care-n-share station!"

Sam stares at him for a moment, his lips pinched together in a thin, hard line.

"Fine," he says tightly.

He snaps his seatbelt open, spikes his unopened protein bar onto the floorboard, and shoves the car door open before slamming it sharply behind him.

Fuck. _Goddammit_.


	82. Chapter 82

"Sam!" Dean struggles with his own seatbelt, throws open his door, and clamors to his feet. "What the hell?"

His brother stands on the other side of the car, his hands shoving through his hair. He gives an angry huff, stalks a few feet away toward the scrubby brush on the side of the road, then turns around.

"Look," he says, "if you won't face the fact that one or both of us could bite it ending this thing, I will. If you want to pick a fight instead of telling me what the hell it is that's been eating you up inside, I'll fight with you, Dean! I swear to God, I will!"

Dean glares at him across the shiny, black expanse of the Impala's roof. The car is still running, "Purple Haze" providing a bizarre soundtrack to their little roadside pissing match. Dean wants to turn the car off, but he can't fight the feeling that the second he takes his eyes off his brother, Sam will be gone.

"And if I don't tell you, you'll what?" Dean demands. "Walk away?"

Sam spreads his arms wide.

"Do you see me walking?" he asks. "Look, I'm going to Tuscaloosa. But if you want me to go alone, you're gonna have to be the one to drive off and leave me standing here, because I'm not gonna do it. I don't want— I can't— I just can't."

"Seemed pretty ready to take off last night," Dean reminds him.

Sam rolls his eyes.

"Leaving to protect you from me and leaving because you have your head shoved so far up your ass you could wear your own rib cage as a hat are two completely different things, Dean."

"They both end up with you gone, though, don't they?"

Sam squints against a gust of wind, shoves his bangs up out of his eyes.

"It's not like I want to go," he says quietly.

"Then why the hell do you keep makin' for the door?" Dean argues. "Over and over again, Sammy."

"This the fight you want to have, Dean? Really?"

Sam sounds so goddamn put upon, like he wants to end that sentence with_'again?'_ Well, why the hell not?

"Car's pulled over," Dean tosses back. "You got your broody shoulders on, dewy sensitive eyes up. Hate to let it all go to waste."

Sam sighs heavily. "Why won't you just tell me what's going on?"

"'Cause it's just- it's not—" Dean makes a frustrated noise. Trust Sam to cut to the heart of the issue. "You don't need to know."

"I don't need to know?" Sam repeats. "You know who you sound like, right?"

"Yeah, you think I don't know that?" Dean snaps, bristling at the comparison. "But that and this... Sammy, you don't want to know, man. You really don't."

Sam is quiet for a few moments. When he speaks again, his voice is quiet but very firm.

"Dean, last time you told me that it was about monsters being real. And you were right, I didn't want to know. But I needed to."

Dean almost wants to laugh. He looks away from Sam's face to study the cracks in the asphalt.

"You don't need to know this, trust me."

"Come on, Dean," Sam tries again. "For once, just this once, let me decide. Please."

"Sam…"

"You know I'm gonna keep asking," Sam argues, and Dean chuckles. Yeah, that he knows for damn sure.

"And you know you try to do somethin' stupid when we square off against Yellow Eyes…" he says. "Well. You know I'm not just gonna _let_ you, right?"

Sam crosses his arms.

"What, you gonna put me in Time Out?" he asks, tone aiming for light.

"Hey, I'm serious. Whatever it takes to to get us both through this. I gotta cuff you, knock you out, lock your ass in the trunk, I will. And if you make me drag your ass back from the great beyond to kick it, I'll do it. Don't you think for a second I won't. It's my turn anyway."

"It is your turn," Sam echoes warily.

"Damn straight," he answers. "Seriously, I'm tellin' you right now, Sammy, if you get caught up in this noble sacrifice, blaze of glory crap and put me through that, I am gonna be _pissed_."

"I'm not…" Sam starts. He frowns, digging the toe of his boot into the dirt. "I'm not planning on doing anything dumb. All I'm saying is, this isn't the time to be keeping secrets."

"Your opinion's been noted," Dean says. "Now get your ass back in the car."

"If you won't tell me, I'm just gonna have to make it up," Sam picks up, gives in but not up as he slides back into the car. Dean waits until he hears the sound of the seatbelt before he gets in the driver's side.

"Make up what?"

"The thing you're keeping from me," Sam breezes, tone almost convincingly light. "If you don't tell me, I'm just gonna have to make something up."

"Come on, Sam…" Dean grumbles, squinting against the sun as he angles his baby off of the shoulder.

"You've never pulled a credit card scam in your life," Sam guesses. "You and dad have been exotic dancing your way through ammo and car parts, and now I've got to start grinding on people. Waxing things. The _real_ family business."

"Hey, can't let all this pretty go to waste." Dean grins.

"Bobby called," Sam tosses out, throwing Dean a wild card. "He and Ellen are giving up hunting to paint the junkyard pink and open a B&B."

Dean snorts. "Well, he's already got the waffle iron for it, and Ellen sure as hell knows her way around a doily."

"Fair enough." Sam nods with a reluctant half-smile, digging their journal from his laptop bag and running nervous fingers over the cover, tracing the cool, smooth black leather over and again as his eyes dart back to Dean.

"Dad called," he ventures.

"Yeah, 'cause he had a great fucking track record with that _before_ I clocked him one and told him to lose our number."

"He called," Sam continued quietly, "because Yellow Eyes has been following the kids their entire lives. Keeping eyes on them. Plants around them. And Stanford, Jess, all of it—"

"Sammy, no."

"Or he told you the kids are turning," Sam continues. "That whatever I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be it soon. Or I'm already—"

"Sam," Dean rasps, his throat working, feelings rise up and get swallowed down just as fast. "It's not that, it's not. I'd tell you—"

"No you wouldn't, Dean!" Sam bursts out. "I know you wouldn't! You didn't! So how- how am I supposed to know? To know he didn't call and say I'm changing? Or- or I'm something worse? Or I got someone else killed? Like Mom and Jess and Ash and that family weren't enough."

His voice breaks.

"I mean, Jesus, if it's this bad, worse than all of that, so bad you won't even tell me, even after everything, then what am I supposed to think, Dean? What is it? What could it possibly be? Something with the demon? Mom? Are we—"

He swallows hard.

"Are we even brothers?"

"Hey, hey. No," Dean interrupts. He reaches out, fighting to keep his voice steady and fingers soothing as they find that place at the base of Sam's neck. "Sam, Sammy, no, it's not that. It's not- it's not any of that stuff. It's not, I promise."

"How can I trust that, Dean?" Sam breaks out. "You only ever get like this when it's something big, something you know I'd be happier not knowing. What the hell am I supposed to do but keep at you until you spill it? Until you realize that no matter how much I might not want to know it, I _need_ to?"

"You don't need to," Dean grinds out.

"Except I do, Dean!" Sam explodes. "I do, 'cause we're about to go up against something that knows all of it, every bit, and I can't have him dump it on me again. I can't! I can't walk into this knowing one of us might not walk out, might be gone, forever, and leave this, whatever the hell it is, left unsaid. And I know you, Dean. I know you're not telling me 'cause you think it'll hurt or that I can't take it, but believe me, not knowing is _worse_. All I can do is sit here and think of worse and worse crap that it could be, and considering the bar for that crap is set at 'you're the completely literal and non-metaphorical antichrist,' the blanks I'm having to fill in here are pretty horrifying, so for the love of God, Dean, just put me out of my misery and tell me already! I promise, at this point, no matter what it is, it's not gonna be worse than some of the stuff I'm coming up with."

"Sam…" Dean starts.

"Do you trust me?" Sam cuts him off sharply.

Dean sighs. "Come on, Sam."

"No, I mean it," Sam cuts him off sharply. "We're driving halfway across the country to find the thing that got Mom and Jess and shoot it in the fucking face. We got no plan, no backup, nothing but you and me and this. This and what it's all goddamn leading to, and I am asking you, man: Yes or no? Do you trust you and me and everything we have ever been through to be- to be _more_ than whatever the hell it is that you know and I don't? To outweigh whatever you've got in you that's so awful that you would rather go in the ground and let me eat myself alive with the million things it could be than just- just come out with it?"

Dean lets out a low, bleak laugh. If possible, Sam looks even more concerned.

"Come on, Dean," he begs. "Please."

"God, you're really not gonna drop this?" Dean asks, fingers digging into the steering wheel.

"I can't, Dean."

"Fine," Dean exhales. "Fine, fine, fine. But you asked for it, got it?"

Sam blinks in surprise. He readjusts himself so he can peer into Dean's face, his face screwed up expectantly.

"Okay," he says seriously.

Dean clears his throat. "All right. So, I might kinda be gay. Not like, gay-gay, but sometimes. Like, half-ish. Every now and then."

Sam is quiet for a long moment.

"Bullshit."

"Dude, seriously? I come out to you and I get 'bullshit?!' Where's the fucking kindness? Where's the Dewey, sensitive goddamn understanding?"

"That's not it," Sam dismisses. "Be serious, Dean."

"I am serious!" Dean protests. "I'm seriously not against the idea of trying out getting some dick!"

Sam snorts inelegantly. "Yeah, okay."

"Don't be all, 'yeah, okay' like 'yeah, okay,'" Dean snaps. "You wanted to know what the fuck was going on, I'm telling you. I think I might like dudes so... there."

"Since when?" Sam challenges skeptically.

"Since none of your business!" Dean snaps. "And what the hell?! I didn't call you a liar and give your ass the third degree when you came clean about flying the rainbow flag!"

"That's because you dragged my last hookup out of me dick first and put a gun to his head, Dean!" Sam snaps. "It was kind of hard to miss at that point, and a little bit more definite than 'kind of sort of maybe wanting to try it some time.'"

"So what, you're not gonna believe me until you catch me balls deep in some asshole—?"

"That's _not_ what I'm saying, Dean!" Sam interrupts, his face going red.

"Then what are you saying?" Dean challenges. "You're allowed to be gay, but I'm not? What the hell kinda rules are those, Sam? I can be as gay as I wanna be. Way gayer than you. And by the way, who made you king of the gays? I mean, Jesus Christ. Excuse me, Gay Hitler, I didn't know I needed to go through you for which set of junk I jack off to! Is there an application? I gotta get my credit score and three references to wanna blow a guy, or is that shit in the trial membership? Sorry, didn't knowing only Ivy League know-it-alls could like dick! Whatever. I think you're gay racist."

"Dean, I am not gay racist!"

"Then why won't you believe me?"

"Because it doesn't make sense!" Sam exclaims. "If it were just that you liked guys, why hide it from me? Why all the secrets and denial and keeping it all boxed up like it was the next fucked up revelation about our fucked up lives? You know I'm into guys. You know I'm fine with it. Why not tell me if you were the same way? What's the big deal? Where's the big fucked-up awfulness that demands you completely shut off from me if, if it's just this?"

"Well, God, you tell me, Sam! What had you so freaked out when I found out?"

Sam stares at him for another long moment, his mouth set in a thin line. He shakes his head.

"No, I don't buy it. Not if you still look like this, even after you've told me. Not if it took all this to make it come out in the first place."

"What?"

"If you really figured out guys did it for you just as well as girls did, it'd be as simple as that," Sam explains. "'Guys, too? Huh. Okay.' That'd be it. And maybe I'd find out, maybe I wouldn't. Either way, no big deal. You know I go both ways, know I don't judge, know there'd be no problem there. So if whatever it is still has you looking like you did every single time I asked where Dad went all day, every single time I asked why we had to move so much, or why you and dad were so serious in Manning, I'm gonna call bullshit. It's different. I know it's different."

"Not that different," Dean says grimly.

"So it _is_ about me."

Dean starts. "What?!"

"God, you do this; you always do this!" Sam exclaims, rubbing at his forehead. "And with the big gay smokescreen—"

"Hey, I am not smokescreen gay," Dean protests. "I am real gay! Legitimately turned on by dick gay, right here! So it's not like—"

"Like what?" Sam asks acerbically. "Like you didn't just fake come out of the closet to distract me from whatever the hell is wrong with me this time?! Which, way to set gay rights back twenty years, Dean! Thanks for that!"

Dean groans. "Oh, my god."

"What?" Sam exclaims. "_What_? What is it that is so _bad_—"

"I'm gay for you, you big dumb retard!" Dean exclaims before he can stop himself. "There, are you happy?!"


End file.
